"This vent actually leads to a bench just outside Zara. Sometimes if there is a busker outside, you can hear their songs coming through."

John Sherlock, my guide for the morning around Exeter's Underground Passages, is pointing to a white vent set into the wall.

"Not long ago when there was a protest against the badger cull, all you could hear was ‘save the badgers, save the badgers!”

Considering we were already several metres underground by this point and hadn't even started the actual tour yet, I was already hooked.

I'll be honest, it wasn't the start I was expecting. It did, however, set the tone perfectly: interesting, funny and, above all, totally unexpcted.

Exeter's Underground Passages

I have lived in Exeter for eight years now, and the Underground Passages have featured on my 'to do' list for almost as long.

For some reason though, I just never got round to it. In truth, I probably wondered just how interesting a few underground tunnels could really be.


But after finally seeing them in all their glory - and receiving a detailed insight into their history courtesy of John - I have seen the error of my ways.

They were superb.

The vent which leads to outside Zara

If you are a self-confessed history nerd like me, the passages are fascinating. A huge container for wine and beer, an old trap door for medieval plumbers, a guard chamber, and secret blocked-off passage ways which could lead to anywhere across the city - these are all features which sit in the passages up to seven metres beneath the city centre.


After finding the entrance to the Underground Passages on Paris Street, John gives me a hard hat, asks if I am claustrophobic, and then takes me below ground.

“Really it’s a story of two interlocking passages," John explains. "One runs down all the way to McDonald’s, another ends where Smiggle is."

They were built to hold pipes carrying water around the city, with construction beginning way back in 1346. The thinking was that, if the pipes sprung a leak, it would be much easier to access and repair them if there was a network of passages housing them rather than simply being buried in the ground.

At a time when the church was all-powerful, Exeter Cathedral had the money and influence to secure its own water supply.

It worked so well that the actual city decided to follow suit almost a century later, hence the two differing networks.

Combined, there are 425 metres of passage ways, with about 80 per cent remaining intact.

My guide, John Sherlock

“Labourers were paid a penny a day, so not very much – although they were also given eight pints of beer a day," says John.

"It was to move water from a spring near St James’s Park to the city. Passages went under roads etc so it was easier to repair.

"Stone was mined and dressed in Thorverton and Silverton, before being transported to the passages."

One thing I start to realise as we wind our way through is that they really are not for the claustrophobic.


Most are only just wide enough for an adult to stand without turning side-on, but some are much tighter.

They are also low, and anyone over six foot will find their hard hat bumping off the roof every now and again.

"We had Dan Snow here not too long ago and he is a big guy – about 6ft 6ins or something," John says.

“We gave him a hard hat. At the end, he said he was given a hard hat all the time but rarely ever needed one, but this was the one occasion where he most certainly did.”

To be honest though, it all adds to the adventure. The old bricks have a damp and musty smell to them, and squeezing through narrow gaps and crouching under various obstacles just adds to the fun.

To me at least.

An old access point for plumbers

John stops me at a section which has clearly been bricked up, although nobody is quite sure when - or why.

"We believe this bricked-up part has a stairwell behind it but we just don’t know," he says.

“We think it leads to a cellar that was actually a hat shop. They had a very deep cellar there so that could be where it leads to, but, in all honesty, we just don’t know."

"Are there any passages that have not been found?" I ask.

“The sad answer is no, we don’t think there are any more passages which haven’t been discovered," John answers.


"The more intriguing answer is that there are a few patches which are bricked up. Where do they go? Where does it end? What is there?

“I am tempted to see what’s on the other side – it would be great to take one of those cameras and poke it through a little hole in the bricks - but this is a protected site which has the same kind of status as Stonehenge.

“If I turned up with a hammer and chisel and started bashing my way through walls, I don’t think they’d be too impressed.”

The remains of where a ladder used to be positioned

We then come across a large stone storage container.

As with so many things in the passages, nobody seems to know for sure why it is there, but John has a theory.

"Evidence suggests this brick plinth was actually a storage container for beer and wine. It’s about 15c – the perfect temperature for storing it," he explains.

“There was a 19 Century pub at what used to be London Square right above us, so we think it’s that.”

It is then that a loud thump from above interrupts us.

I look at my guide quizzically, but John is quick to explain that it is not in fact a ghost, but actually a specific manhole cover on the High Street being run over by the buses running through town.

Further along, the loud ping of a message coming through on my phone sounds - good to know wifi still works even six metres under ground.


At another point, two bits of stone jut inwards from the walls.

John points upwards.

"That was an oak trap door above us which we think was the access point," he reveals.

"People climbed down here to inspect the leaky pipes. And these bits of stone sticking out were the ladders that they climbed up and down.

“Any leak would be dealt with by tying it with a rag. It would also be sealed with animal fat, which did work but it had another problem. It attracted a lot of rats, which made working conditions very difficult.”

A number of areas of the passages are blocked up - what's on the other side?

We come across another point which is clearly an old doorway which leads to a guard chamber. It is at the point near where the old city gates were, and even has what looks like a firing port looking over what used to be Exeter's protective moat.

But it all begs the question, why is it now metres underground?

"It was initially only a metre deep," John explains. "But a combination of things like the civil war, Victorian re-builds, World War Two and just general detritus has added another five metres to it."

I turn my attentions from the passages to John, curious to find out more about our guide and how he copes with groups of up to 15 people through these tight, twisting subterranean passageways.


“It can be challenging showing 15 people around down here. You have to be aware of the size and age of the visitors," says John, who was a history teacher at a Devon comprehensive for 16 years before starting at the passages in June last year.

"It is all about being logistically aware. I try to make sure the 15th person isn’t the 15th person for the whole tour.

“People do freak out from time to time. Claustrophobia bites when you are down here.

"Sometimes you do have to keep people calm and ask for another member of staff to come down and help them up to ground level."

Inside Exeter's Underground Passages

We end with what is called 'the low section' - and it is certainly aptly named.

I have to squat down on my haunches and use my hands to squeeze through it, but it is surprisingly exciting for those who can fit down there.

And with that, our tour is over. 

The Underground Passages really are another gem in Exeter's rich history - and one I would strongly recommend.

All I can really say is that I don't think I'll ever look at the High Street in quite the same way ever again.