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Please see http://exeterwhiteensignclub.co.uk/club-history/ for further information.
The building currently housing the EXETER WHITE ENSIGN CLUB was formerly a Church known as “The Holy Trinity Church”, but this whole area around the building has a much earlier history.
The plaque fixed on the wall outside the Club shows where the Medieval South Gate stood. Records show that as far back as the year 1312 a Church was located alongside the South Gate, as was the notorious Kings Prison. This prison was used to house felons and debtors, the prisoners being kept in cells under which an open sewer flowed.
Prisoners were occasionally allowed to beg for alms from an upper storey room, this being accomplished by dangling a shoe on a piece of string to the passers-by down in the street below – giving rise to the expression ‘living on a shoestring’. No wonder this prison was once described as “The most disgusting and disgraceful in the land”.
The South Gate was one of the gates, which, as openings in the City wall, gave access to the old city.
Many books on the history of Exeter depict varying pictures of how the South Gate area looked. One picture shows “The surrender to the Parliamentarians at the South Gate” on 13th April 1646. The South Gate as a building was removed in 1819 as was the prison and the original Holy Trinity Church of that site.
In 1820 the foundation stone for the next Holy Trinity Church was laid.