Exeter House

Exeter House was an early 17th-century brick-built mansion, which stood in Full Street, Derby until demolished in 1854. Named for the Earls of Exeter, whose family owned the property until 1757, the house was notable for the stay of Charles Edward Stuart during the Jacobite Rising of 1745. Exeter House was replaced by offices, which in turn were replaced by Charles Aslin's Magistrates Courts, built on the site during 1935. The courts were closed at the beginning of 2004, and after a decade vacant the building returned to use as an office development, Riverside Chambers.

This is where Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie" or "The Young Pretender") took up residence on 4 December 1745. His host was the widowed mother of Samuel Ward. Ward was employed as the Young Pretender's food taster.

On the morning of 5 December a Council of War was called at Exeter House. The commander of the prince's forces, Lord George Murray, argued that the lack of support from the French and from English Jacobites made success unlikely and retreat necessary. The prince was opposed to a retreat, and some members of the Council objected strongly and aggressively to giving up their advance on London. Meeting with the Council again later in the day, the prince took the decision to retreat, and he left Exeter House the following morning. He gave Ward's mother a diamond ring in thanks for their service before he left. The decision to retreat meant that the Young Pretender would not take George II's crown and his army returned to Scotland, where they were finally defeated in 1746 at the Battle of Culloden.

After the death of the 8th Earl in 1754, the house was sold in 1757 by his widow to John Bingham, Mayor of Derby for that year. Bingham lived at the house until his death in 1773 after which, in 1795, Jedediah Strutt purchased it. Strutt lived there until his death in 1797. The last owner was a lawyer, William Eaton Mousely, twice Mayor of Derby, who, after making some alterations in the 1830s, had the house demolished in 1854, believing Exeter House to be too large to maintain, and also to allow improvements to Exeter Bridge.

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