Mount Radford village street: historic maps

This series of historic maps is mapped against listings of residents taken from various sources. The maps represent the most recent versions available for each listing, which is normally taken from trade directories, but for the period before 1874 census returns are used and for later dates sources such as Google Street View. While it is now considered as part of St Leonard's, in earlier times the north side of Magdalen Road was in the parish of Heavitree, which can make its location in census enumerator's return problematical. To date only the 1851 census is included, by which time the properties had been  numbered up one side and down the other.

The progressive development along the frontage of Magdalen Road in the latter half of the 19th century meant that many properties remained unnumbered and in about 1893 the whole street was renumbered with odd numbers along the north side and even numbers along the south side. A miscalculation of the density of development meant that number 27 was not at first used.  

The first resurvey of the area after the renumbering was in 1906 and the map is correlated with Kelly's directory for the same year. The building up of the frontage had been complete for some years. 

The 1939 listing is the last before the outbreak of World War 2, and shows all the shops being occupied about three years before many of them were destroyed in the Blitz.

After the War the scale of mapping of many town centres was changed from 1:2,500 to 1:1,250 and the earliest for this part of Exeter was 1950. It shows that properties along the street frontage between 14 and 67 were destroyed and still not redeveloped although businesses in 51 and 59, set back from the road, were operating.

Rebuilding was by 1958 substantially complete, but a final renumbering did not take place until the 1960s after all post-War redevelopment had been completed. This had the overall effect of lowering street numbers in the middle of the street above 25 by two, although the situation in the bomb damaged areas is more complex and the precise identity of sites is uncertain, as the numbering at the east end of the street by the Mount Radford Inn is raised by two. Further year by year research and closer examination of maps should clarify these discrepancies. 

The most recent 1:1,250 Ordnance Survey plan of Magdalen Road which is out of copyright dates from 1969, and this will be used as the base for any subsequent maps that are added as there is no significant change after that date.

This page first uploaded 7 July 2022