Exeter Bridge was built by plutocrat to reach his land

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Derby’s Exeter Bridge started life as a timber footbridge built by the Binghams, of Exeter House, in order to access their extensive gardens on the other side of the river on Canary Island. Maxwell Craven traces the fascinating history of the bridge and how it came to be the structure we know today.

A view of Exeter Bridge in 1852 by HL Pratt, courtesy of Bamfords auctioneers. The timber bridge had already gone

Few know that that the part of the east bank of the Derwent bounded by the canal (now St Alkmund’s Way) and the River used to be known as Canary Island.

In the 18th century, the area was the pleasure grounds and gardens of the very grandest houses on Full Street. Most of the land belonged to Exeter House but 3 Full Street, where Erasmus Darwin lived for 20 years, also had a garden there.

The problem was to get to these gardens across the river. Most families were driven round via St Mary’s Bridge in their carriages for a summer picnic or an after-supper stroll, which seemed self-defeating.

Both the Binghams, of Exeter House, and Erasmus Darwin solved this problem but in different ways. Darwin opted for a hand-operated ferry of his own devising.

This crossed the river precisely where Derby cityscape propose to erect their footbridge on Cathedral Green. When they asked people to suggest names for it, I proposed “Darwin’s Ferry” but I doubt they will adopt my suggestion!

The Binghams, on the other hand, erected a timber footbridge, for all river traffic stopped short of that point. The bridge, because it served Exeter House, was soon called Exeter Bridge and, after Jedediah Strutt bought Exeter House, members of the public were allowed to cross on it. They were also permitted to use the canal towpath bridge of 1796 – the Long Bridge – a few yards further downstream.

But all wheeled traffic still had to cross by St Mary’s Bridge, which had been widened and improved in 1794.

After Strutt’s death, his bridge was widened by Saxelby and Co, who founded the lead works in St Peter’s Street, so that wheeled vehicles could get across to Ford Lane and from there to Nottingham Road – but purely as a private thoroughfare.

They soon went into liquidation and the bridge was then taken over by Derby Corporation which, in 1810, proposed to further improve it and open it as a public road.

This move to widen and strengthen the timber Exeter Bridge provoked a furious reaction from a segment of the populace.

The citizens of St Alkmund’s parish, especially those living and working on Bridge Gate, which led down to St Mary’s Bridge, held a protest meeting.

On July 5, 1810, they presented a petition to the corporation objecting, in the strongest possible terms, to the opening of Exeter Bridge. Addressed to town clerk William Ward, it was endorsed

by 129 prominent citizens, including such names as Whitehurst and Son, clockmakers; Richard Brown, of the marble works; Richard Bassano, lawyer; Samuel Bregazzi, instrument maker; Thomas Bridgett, silk throwster; and John Wallis, proprietor of the New Inn, on the corner of Bridge Gate and King Street.

Essentially, these people, who included nearly 20 women, were afraid that to take the main traffic going to Nottingham via the Nottingham Road turnpike across Exeter Bridge instead of St Mary’s

Bridge, would threaten their businesses, especially the dozen or so inns and taverns. For instance, the New Inn, then HQ of the local Tory Party as home of the Derby True Blue Club, was also the hub of a complex and hugely profitable network of stage coaches run by the Wallis family.

They built the New Inn precisely because it was so close to the bridge. Opening a new crossing, leading from the Market Place through an arch via Darby’s Yard – once the entrance to the Every family town house – to Ford Lane, later to become Derwent Street East, gave the proprietors of other inns an unfair advantage – for, with coaching, every second counted when stops were made.

The petition predicted the immediate decline of the St Alkmund’s area and the petitioners were soon proved right. Some years later, a commentator wrote: ‘The fears of these inhabitants were all too well grounded; the march of ‘improvement’ had then commenced and the advancing interests of trade were slowly, but surely, drawn away from St. Alkmund’s to the parish of St. Peter. Exeter Bridge was the thin end of the wedge.”

There are distinct resonances here with the Eagle Centre opening in 1970 and Westfield in 2007. The first drew a swathe of businesses away from the historic core of the Derby, southwards towards The Morledge; the second finished the job so effectually that all the council’s efforts to reinvigorate the Cathedral area seem likely to be in vain.

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