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Walk in and the temptation is to look straight ahead. Look up instead. The stone ribs overhead run the length of the nave unbroken, and there is no cathedral anywhere in the world with a longer stretch of medieval vaulting of its kind. The reason is an absence: Exeter has no centre tower, so nothing interrupts the ceiling. Everything else here, the clock with a hole cut in the door for the cat, the throne whose canopy is held together without metal nails, the book the cathedral calls the oldest book of English literature, sits underneath it.
We at Travelmyth, the hotel search engine that ranks stays by your interests and needs across 60 stay categories, have put together this guide to what is actually worth your attention inside Exeter Cathedral, and what is worth knowing before you buy a ticket. It is easy to give the building forty minutes. We would give it two hours, partly because the best things in it are small and easy to walk past, and partly because the practical details, which days the Treasures Exhibition is closed, and how much shorter the Sunday hours are, are not obvious from the doorway.
The cathedral markets itself as a thousand years of history, and that is true of the institution rather than of the stones, which is worth untangling because it explains what you are looking at.
The first date is 1050, when the bishop's seat was moved to Exeter from Crediton for fear of sea-raids, and Leofric became the first Bishop of Exeter. He used a Saxon minster already standing in the city as his cathedral, and he is buried in the building that replaced it.
The second is 1114. The appointment of William Warelwast to the see in 1107 triggered a new cathedral in the Norman style; building began in 1114 and it was consecrated in 1133. The twin towers you can see from half the city are the survivors of that church, and remains of the Norman building can still be seen in those massive transept towers. There is no centre tower, which is why the ceiling inside runs unbroken.
The third is 1258, when Walter Bronescombe became bishop and the building was rebuilt in the Decorated Gothic style, following Salisbury's example, though much of the Norman work was kept. The retrochoir, presbytery and choir went up in the 1290s; by 1328 the church was finished as far as the first two bays of the nave, where a change in the vault design is still visible if you know to look for it; and the building was essentially complete by about 1400. W. G. Hoskins wrote in his 1954 book Devon that the main structure is as perfect an example of early-14th-century architecture as Salisbury is of the early 13th.
One more date, because the building carries it. On 4 May 1942 a bomb scored a direct hit during the Baedeker raids, the German campaign that picked its British targets out of the Baedeker travel guidebooks. It demolished the chapel of St James outright and took the muniment room, three bays of the aisle and two flying buttresses with it. The cathedral was hit by a single high-explosive bomb. Its most important contents, the ancient glass, the misericords, the bishop's throne and the Exeter Book, had already been removed in anticipation of exactly that.
This is the thing to see, and the easiest to under-appreciate because ceilings are hard work to look at. Exeter has the longest uninterrupted medieval stone vaulted ceiling in the world, running approximately 96 metres from end to end. It is made possible by the fact that the church has no central tower to break the line.
Look for the bosses. There are over 400 carved stone bosses set into the ribs, and they are not all pious: among the faces and animals there is a mermaid, and one boss depicts the murder of Thomas Becket. Below them, the piers are blue-grey Purbeck marble, and the whole building was put up in local stone. Standing at the west end and looking east, the vista of marble columns rising into the ribbed vault is the shot everyone takes and it does not photograph as well as it looks.
Look up in the north transept and there is a clock showing you a medieval idea of the universe. The Earth is a fixed golden ball at the centre. A fleur-de-lys on the outermost ring is the Sun, and it goes round the dial once every 24 hours, its tail pointing at the day of the lunar month on the inner ring. Inside that, a ball half black and half silver rotates to show the phase of the moon. The hours run I to XII twice in Roman numerals, once for each half of the face.
The main lower dial is the oldest part and is usually dated to around 1484, though not every account agrees; the small upper dial with a single hand, which simply gives the minutes, was added much later, in the eighteenth century. The mechanism you would see now is not medieval either: the early one was removed in 1885, when Gillett & Bland of Croydon installed a replacement, and it was restored in 1910. A small bell behind the dial still chimes the quarter hours. Underneath runs the Latin motto Pereunt et imputantur, which can be translated as "the hours pass and are reckoned to our account".
Now look at the bottom of the door beneath it. There is a round hole cut through it in the early seventeenth century, and the reason is completely practical: the clock mechanism was lubricated with animal fat, the fat attracted vermin, and the bishop's cat needed to get in. It is popularly claimed to be the oldest cat flap in the world, and it is popularly credited as the origin of Hickory Dickory Dock. Both are stories rather than established facts, and both are told very often.
In the quire stands a canopied oak throne described as one of the greatest treasures of medieval woodwork in Europe. It was made from Devon oak, its main construction took place between 1313 and 1317, it rises more than 16 metres, and its canopy is held together with wooden pegs rather than metal nails. The cathedral's records still contain the details of felling the trees and preparing the timber.
Master Thomas of Witney was engaged in 1316 to design the choir furnishings; he became master mason and stayed at Exeter until 1342. Exeter describes the throne as the greatest surviving medieval bishop's throne in Europe, and the Association of English Cathedrals credits it with the tallest medieval throne canopy.
High on the north side of the nave, a projecting balcony carries carved angels playing musical instruments. The Minstrels' Gallery dates from the middle of the fourteenth century and is unique among English cathedrals.
The organ stands on the medieval screen between the quire and the nave, where it has the best possible acoustic and blocks the best possible view. The present great organ case dates from 1665, when John Loosemore built a new instrument; the organ was radically rebuilt by Henry Willis in 1891 and again by Harrison & Harrison in 1931. It now has more than 4,000 pipes, over 3,000 of them in the case on the screen, and one of only three trompette militaire stops in the country, housed up in the Minstrels' Gallery. The composer Matthew Locke trained here as a boy and his name is scratched into the stone of the organ screen.
The Treasures Exhibition sits above the Cathedral Shop and is included in your admission. It holds the Exeter Book, a codex of Old English poetry that the cathedral describes as the oldest book of English literature in the world and that UNESCO has inscribed on its Memory of the World register. It is displayed alongside artefacts covering more than a thousand years of the cathedral's history.
The book's survival is close to accidental. Bishop Leofric gave the library 66 books in the eleventh century and the Exeter Book is the only one of them still here. At some point in its life it was used as a cutting board and as a coaster. Leofric also wrote a curse into some of his books: "If any one removes this he shall be eternally cursed. So be it! So be it!"
The wider Cathedral Library is a working research collection rather than a display: some 36 Anglo-Saxon charters from the tenth and eleventh centuries, a psalter probably written for the Church of St Helen at Worcester in the early thirteenth, a Second Folio of Shakespeare, and books so delicate they are rested on pillows to be read. A 1506 catalogue records eleven desks and over 530 titles. In 1602, 81 of the manuscripts were given to Sir Thomas Bodley and went to Oxford. Seeing any of it requires an appointment, because the room is too small for a large group.
One planning trap worth knowing: the Treasures Exhibition opens 10am to 4pm and is closed on Wednesdays and Sundays, which is not the same pattern as the cathedral itself. Guided tours of it run at 10am, 12pm and 3pm and take about 45 minutes. If the Exeter Book is your reason for coming, do not come on a Wednesday.
The screen of carved figures across the west facade was added around 1340, with a further top tier finished about 1470, and it was probably designed by William Joy. The screen is populated by biblical and religious figures, although only some can now be identified with certainty. It is one of the great architectural set-pieces of medieval England, and it is best seen at sunset, when the west front glows.
The 49 medieval misericords in the present quire stalls were carved mainly in the mid-13th century and form one of the oldest surviving sets in England. The stalls around them are Victorian, made by George Gilbert Scott in the 1870s, who also restored the quire and added the Martyrs' pulpit to the nave.
While you are outside, two things you would otherwise miss. The exterior carries grotesques rather than gargoyles, the difference being that grotesques do not spout water, and some of them were carved as recently as the twentieth century. And the outer walls are home to Segestria florentina, the tube web spider, which has iridescent green fangs.
The grass in front of the west front is not just a lawn. Roman archaeological remains lie beneath Cathedral Green, while part of the Roman bath house survives nearby beneath the Deanery Garden. A statue of Richard Hooker sits in the middle of the Green, and on any sunny lunchtime so does half the city.
The Close around it was walled after 1283, with seven gates into the yard, which is what made it a close in the first place. Its buildings are a compressed lesson in Exeter's architecture: the fifteenth-century St Martin's Church, the timber-framed sixteenth-century Mol's Coffee House, St Petrock's Church, and seventeenth-century houses at numbers 2 to 5. The north-western side of the Green, where the Royal Clarence Hotel stands, is called Cathedral Yard. There has been a church on this site since at least the seventh century, when the young Saint Boniface came over from Crediton to study here.
Your admission already includes a guided floor tour, subject to availability, plus audio guides and the Treasures Exhibition. The audio guides are free from the Welcome Desk and come in English, French, German and Italian, and Braille guides are available too. Ask at the Welcome Desk for today's floor-tour times when you arrive.
The tours worth planning around are the ones that go upstairs. These run on fixed dates and are booked separately online:
From the roof, weather permitting, you get panoramic views across Exeter and beyond. Some of the special tours carry accessibility restrictions, which are listed on the cathedral's Special Tours page, and the roof and tower tours should be booked in advance.
The cheapest way into this building is also the best way to hear it. There is never a charge to come in to worship or to pray, and a choir of children and adults has sung here almost daily for hundreds of years. The cathedral choir has up to 38 choristers, boys and girls, alongside choral scholars and lay vicars, and there is a voluntary choir, the St Peter's Singers, that goes back to 1881.
Beyond the regular programme of services, the What's On listing is grouped into children and families, exhibitions, library and archives, music and concerts, organ recitals, special tours, a summer music series and workshops. The 2026 summer organ recital series included the Director of Music at Wells Cathedral, on 27 August.
From mid-November to mid-December, Cathedral Green fills with the largest Christmas market in Devon.
Prices and times below were recorded from the cathedral's own site in 2026. Check before you travel, as opening hours can change for services and special events.
The cathedral's own site gives opening as 9am to 5pm Monday to Saturday and 11:30am to 4pm on Sunday. Adult admission is £12.50; seniors and students pay £10.50; children under 18 within a family group go free.
Admission includes a guided floor tour, subject to availability, along with the audio guide and the Treasures Exhibition. The exhibition keeps different hours from the cathedral itself and is closed on Wednesdays and Sundays.
Several routes get you in for nothing. There is no charge to enter for worship or prayer, or to visit the Cathedral Shop. Carers accompanying a sightseer are admitted free. Residents of postcodes EX1 to EX4, and students at Exeter College or the University of Exeter, can enter free with a Welcome Card, applied for online and collected from the Welcome Desk with proof of address or student ID. UK taxpayers who Gift Aid their admission receive a 12-month pass at no extra charge.
The cathedral ran a Half Price Sundays offer during summer 2026. If you are visiting in a future summer, check whether a similar offer is running before planning around it.
The cathedral receives no regular funding from either the Church of England or the UK Government.
The Chapter House Cafe, inside the medieval Chapter House with its painted ceiling and angel carvings, opens 10am to 4pm Monday to Saturday and 11:30am to 4pm on Sunday, and its profits support the cathedral. The Ten Fifty Cafe in the Cloister Garden opens 10:30am to 2:30pm Monday to Saturday and is closed on Sunday. The Cathedral Shop is reached through the Friends' Cloister Gallery.
The cathedral stands on Cathedral Close, EX1 1HS, in the middle of the city, and walking is genuinely the easiest way to arrive. Exeter Central station is about five minutes away on foot; buses stop on the High Street roughly three minutes away; and there are bus services between the city centre and Exeter St Davids.
By car, the city is reached from the M5, A30 and A38, and Park and Ride is the sensible option. The Palace Gate car park has very limited spaces and only one dedicated disabled bay. Coaches drop off in South Street, EX1 1DZ, opposite the walkthrough to the cathedral, and park at Haven Banks, EX2 8DP.
If you would rather not think about parking at all, the cathedral sits in the middle of the city and Exeter Central is a five-minute walk away. Travelmyth lists stays in Exeter filtered by the things people actually choose on, so if you want somewhere boutique-style or somewhere with a pool, you can filter for it and combine any two.
There is step-free access throughout most of the building at ground level, and designated disabled parking within about 50 metres of the main entrance on a flat, step-free route. Accessible toilets are in both the Cathedral and the Cloister Gallery, gender neutral, with baby changing and a family WC. The Friends' Cloister Gallery and the Treasures Exhibition are reached by staircase or by lift, and the Chapter House Cafe has step-free access.
The cathedral launched a Braille visitor guide with the InFocus charity, and British Sign Language interpreters attend the 10am Eucharist on the first Sunday of each month.
One point to get right before you set out: only assistance dogs are permitted inside the cathedral.
Our own suggestion, rather than an official one: allow two hours to do it properly, roughly an hour on the floor tour and the interior, three quarters of an hour for the Treasures Exhibition tour, and the rest for the Close and the Green. Allow extra if you are taking a roof tour.
For timing, three things are worth coordinating. The Treasures Exhibition is shut on Wednesdays and Sundays. The upstairs tours run at fixed late-morning times, the Roof Tour at 11:15am and Onwards & Upwards at 11:00am, and both need booking. And the west front glows at sunset. If you are choosing a single day, a Saturday gets you the cathedral's full hours and the Treasures Exhibition open; a Sunday means shorter hours and no Treasures Exhibition.