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A Topographical Map - West of the Exe

By Heather at Exeter

Have you ever imagined what your local neighbourhood would look like if all of the buildings, streets and fields were removed leaving just the hills and gentle riverside slopes?

Scroll down for a larger version of this map

By Heather at Exeter

This topographical map has been created for the Living Here local research group and shows what our landscape actually looks like as revealed by the contours of the land. To give you an idea of where you are some place names and other local features have been marked. These include: rivers, canals and streams, a skeleton of roads and lanes, railway, area names and some Parish boundaries. The contours have been shown at 5 metre intervals above mean sea level and some spot heights have been shown as a guide as well as a scale.

The map provides some idea of the simplicity of a natural environment in which ancient people found their way around from prehistoric times right through to as recently as the 20th Century before the city rapidly expanded and swallowed up the villages. By showing the topography without the modern features it is possible to spot patterns in the way that early farmers and travellers took direct routes along hill tops or how they negotiated steep valleys with rivers and streams. For example the earliest routes from the City centre at Exe Bridges crossed the flood plain of the Exe and fanned out towards geographic features such as entrances to valleys (towards Alphington) or easiest routes up the hillsides and along the ridges (Cowick Street and Okehampton Road). Others followed the river edge at the base of the hills (Exwick to Cowley).

The map also provides an insight into why villages and farms sprang up in certain spots; perhaps because of the shape of the hills providing security or shelter and the underlying geology providing good water and fertile soils. As the centuries passed and a structure of human activity begins to present itself the sites of ancient mills, farms, priories and parish boundaries give further areas of study.

A version of the topography map is provided here which may be freely used for your own study and it is planned to have much larger versions printed out in the near future so that lots more information can be gathered from various individual studies and layered over the top.