In this latest history of Exeter Cathedral, Nicholas Orme asks the question: why is it here? Both why it is in Exeter and why we have a cathedral in the first place. What is its essential purpose? Nicholas Orme, emeritus professor of history at the University of Exeter and an expert both in the medieval history of the south-west and in cathedral history, has spent thirty-five years researching in the cathedral archives of Exeter. He is therefore well-placed to address the question that he poses, which he does in 244 pages including eighty-one illustrations. He approaches the subject with a fresh directness, with humour, insight and an evident enthusiasm and affection. In twelve chapters he takes us from the beginnings of a Christian presence in the Roman city through to just after the Reformation. In between we are given a fascinating glimpse of the physical development of the cathedral, from the Saxon monastic church first used as a cathedral in 1050 through the Romanesque cathedral of the twelfth century to the Decorated Gothic beauty that we now have which began to take shape 160 years after the Norman. But this book is about so much more than architectural history. It is peppered with little vignettes garnered from Orme's meticulous research, reflecting so many of the people in the cathedral's history – kings, bishops, deans, canons, junior clergy, musicians and artisans. It covers the annual and daily cycles of cathedral life, the ways in which that life was paid for, the cathedral's relationship with the city and with the wider political and social developments around it. The conservative nature of the area is contrasted nicely with the reforming zeal of Simon Heynes, who was dean after the ill-fated Reginald Pole and through the early years of the English Reformation. Like Henry viii, Dean Heynes placed a major emphasis on the potential role for cathedrals in the world of education. He wanted to replace the twenty-four canons whom he inherited with twelve preachers who would be theology graduates and would travel around the diocese. His personal fortunes were as troubled as the time that he lived through and he could not carry out all his reforms, but he succeeded in changing the arrangements by which choristers were fed and housed. Orme's carefully understated treatment of this gives a hint of possible impropriety. This is a book which is easy to read and digest yet full of scholarly detail. There are full notes at the end, but the main text flows easily and tells a vibrant story. As someone involved in cathedral ministry for more than twelve years, I was given fresh insight into how it, and Exeter in particular, developed. The book claims not quite to answer its own question, but I think that is too modest: Nicholas Orme sums up a cathedral's ministry at the immediate pre-Reformation period as one of ‘prayer, preaching and hospitality’, a summary which applies equally well today.