The Elizabethan country house at Hayes Barton

Hayes Barton was a small country mansion which stood on the flood plain of the River Exe in St Thomas Parish, on the opposite side of the river to Exeter.

This detail is taken from the Braun and Hogenburg engraving of Exeter published in 1617 but surveyed in Queen Elizabeth’s reign in 1584-5. It shows the house with the high gables typical of Elizabethan country houses, and with an enclosing wall.

Excavation in the 1980s by Exeter Archaeology revealed the entire layout of the site, and its development from a late medieval building. The house was destroyed in 1643.

Acknowledgments: Exeter City Council