Livery Dole Almshouses & chapel, c1840, Exeter

Pencil and wash drawing of the Livery Dole Almshouses & chapel, c.1840, Exeter. 

Livery Dole is an ancient triangular site between Heavitree Road, Magdalen Road, and Polsoe Road, in Exeter. The name probably derives from the Old English word Leofhere, meaning man, and dole, meaning piece of land, and the place was first listed in a deed of 1278. Livery Dole was historically used as a place of execution for those who had committed heresy, witchcraft, or treason. The last man to be executed on the site was Thomas Benet, the Protestant Martyr, in 1531, for nailing a notice to the West Door of Exeter Cathedral which challenged the Pope's supremacy.

In 1591 the almshouses at Livery Dole were founded by Sir Robert Dennis, possibly as recompense for the execution of Benet by his ancestor, Sir Thomas Dennis, the former Sherriff of Devon. They were built to house twelve men, and each was given a single room with a small plot of land for a garden. In addition, the occupants were paid twelve pence per week. A chapel, St. Clare's Chapel, was also built for their use. By 1823, ten people were living on the site. In 1848, the almshouses were rebuilt by Lady Louisa Rolle. The following year, the new almshouses were opened, but they were not to the taste of all- a particularly scathing reviewer wrote to the Flying Post to declare the new structures "a deformity and a disgrace."

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