I live in a very old city, the Romans arrived around 55 AD, and scared off the local Celtic tribe. They built a wall around the city they had named Isca Dumnoniorum and left a couple hundred years later. The wall, or about seventy per cent of it is still here. Impressive builders those Romans.

One of the good things about Facebook is all the local groups, one of the ones I follow, Exeter Memories is great for photos of Exeter in the past, it always provokes a lot of ooohs and aaahs and I remember that, but a couple of days ago there was a real treat.

The really talented Jerry Bird posted this photo in the group, and kindly gave me permission to post it here. He’s scanned a drawing of the ancient South Gate, from an old book on Exeter, and superimposed it onto a photo he took. The location, a not very appealing road into the city, was rebuilt quickly after the blitz and sadly looks nothing like this, except for the road markings and the car.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it did?

Jerry has plans to create some more of these images and i can’t wait to see them.

Thank you Jerry for bringing history to life.