Exhibits (2 total)
Mapping our Exeter
This exhibition explores ideas around mapping and a sense of place in the city of Exeter.
We invite you to travel back in time through a display of digitised historic maps of Exeter to discover how the city has been mapped over the past 500 years. How have Exeter's landmarks been represented? What was the purpose of each map? How and when did the city's boundaries expand? What in Exeter has changed, what has stayed the same - and why?
Then browse our new and unique digital map of Exeter. Created through contributions from people in the community, it charts places of personal meaning to those who live in, work in or visit Exeter. These include places connected to special memories, landmarks of historical significance, the location of a friendly cat, and where to find the best banana bread!
This digital exhibition is based on an outreach project (2022-2023) with the local community in Exeter, organised by the University of Exeter Special Collections.
Ronald Duncan - Writer, Poet and Librettist
Ronald Duncan (1914-1982) was a productive West Country author whose literary career encompassed journalism, fiction, poetry, libretti, film scripts and plays. He is best known as the playwright of This Way to the Tomb (1946), his epic poem Man (The Complete Cantos, 1980) and as the librettist for The Rape of Lucretia (1946), an opera he co-wrote with Benjamin Britten. He was also a farmer, horse breeder and wartime pacifist who lived and worked most of his life in North Devon.
Duncan left the legacy of a fascinating archive of literary and personal papers, The Ronald Duncan Collection, which was donated to Special Collections at the University of Exeter in 2016.
This exhibition helps shed light on this often overlooked writer and the treasures held within the Ronald Duncan Collection.