Open Meeting: Ben Clapp on ‘The Restoration and Restorers: How St Nicholas Priory was saved’

In the early 1900s, St Nicholas Priory, once one of Exeter’s grandest buildings was in a very poor state. Described as ‘A mere rookery of tenements’ it was threatened with demolition. Fortunately the local people came together, writing in the papers until the city council decided to save the building. Then the painstaking work of restoration began, all through the troubles of the First World War which nearly stopped the whole project. This is the story of how St Nicholas Priory was saved, those who went above the call of duty to see the work completed, and the attempt to solve the puzzle that is all which was done at the time but only sparsely recorded.

Ben Clapp has been involved with St Nicholas Priory for some seventeen years and during his time being involved there has focused his studies on the last few hundred years of the buildings history. In this research he has uncovered a great deal of interesting stories about both the building and the people involved, much of which was entirely unknown.