Imperial Hotel, c1980, Exeter

Photograph of the Imperial Hotel, c1980, Exeter

In 1809 James Green, the famous civil engineer and canal builder, purchased a field on St David’s Hill and designed a house for himself to be built on the plot. The house was completed in 1810 and he named it Elmfield House. Green had been born in Birmingham but moved to Exeter in 1808. He carried out work all over the country but was particularly prolific in South West England and he became the county surveyor for Devon. A detailed biography of Green can be found in Brian George's book, 'James Green, Canal Builder and County Surveyor (1781-1849)', which was published by Devon Books in 1997. Green lived in Elmfield House until the early 1820s and it continued to be a private residence until the 1920s.

In 1927, Elmfield House was converted into a 29-bedroom hotel by N.W. Pollard and renamed the Imperial Hotel. For many years the Imperial was a popular and successful establishment, but by the 1980s it was long past its prime. Like many small hotels, it had been hit by the growth of foreign holidays, it was too small to accommodate the coach tour trade that had become the bread-and-butter business of many larger hotels, and the days of the small and expensive bijou hotel had not yet arrived. The hotel was sold in the late 1980s and for some time the future use of the building was uncertain. It was finally purchased by the Wetherspoon group in 1994 and, after a complete refurbishment, was opened as a pub named The Imperial in 1996. This was welcomed by many locals, but the opening of The Imperial only served to hasten the decline of the other pubs in the Red Cow area of the city. Of the 5 licensed premises that were operating in 1994, only the Great Western Hotel remains open today. Sadly, the Red Cow, the John Bull, the Jolly Porter and the Pack Horse, pubs that are fondly remembered by generations of students from the Birks and Duryard halls of residence, have now been confined to history.

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