The Daisy Cafe

There’s an intriguing section of the back wall bounding the garden of The Daisy Café at 98 Fore Street, Heavitree. To the left side as you face it, there are clearly large ashlar blocks typical of those used in the 1500s and of the time when the Church of St Michael’s and All Angels was built in Heavitree Stone. To the right, the building materials are mixed and the blocks are smaller, suggesting a later re-build, although this picture may be confused by later rendering.

The Heavitree Stone component may well be associated with the extended church estate since it is within fairly close proximity. But it is also clear from the 1801 Thomas Budgen drawing for the Ordnance Survey that there was what might be thought of as early ‘ribbon’ development along Fore Street itself, suggesting that medieval buildings on this site had more to do with servicing traffic into the city rather than the church.