Haldon Road

The houses in the road date from the late 1880s. The buildings were relatively new when Jack Arthur Charles Kneel of Number 31 died in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916. He was seventeen-years-old and serving on HMS Defence. His family business was initially called Exeter Laundries Ltd and later changed its name to Kneels. Until 2021 it was still operating, as part of the Johnson Group, in its original location at Cowley Bridge Road.

In 1918 another former resident of Haldon Road, and Hele’s Boy, was awarded the Military Cross. Second Lieutenant Stewart G. Maitland had joined up at the age of 18 in September 1914 and, at the time of the award, it was noted that he had been on the Front `having so far come through unharmed’. He was a Battalion Lewis Gun Officer.

Another illustrious former resident of the road was Bert Burden, a pre-war amateur footballer who played for Exeter City.

A longstanding resident, seventy-eight year old Lewis George Webber of Bryn-Teg, said in 1941:`people are not so ready to take advice when I started in business fifty years ago. It may be that they are more independent. I don’t know. Anyhow, they are less inclined to be persuaded, preferring to buy what they fancy. But they don’t always get the best bargains that way!’ Webber sold furniture and antiques in Fore Street.

Another resident, James Bell, has recalled of the early to mid 1900s: `The boys living in Haldon Road (where I lived), and the boys living in Looe Road, had an on going turf war with each other, which had been going on for years. There were some tremendous fists fights, as well as brick fights. How any of us avoided serious injury I do not know. These fights were continued in the playground, there were three brothers called “Long” from Looe Road – two [Norman William Francis Long in 1978 and Raymond Edward Robert Long in 1983] of them went on to be mayors, and the other became an alderman. They served Exeter well and the City can be justly proud of them.’