The Exeter Hotel
246 Rundle Street, Adelaide
The Exeter Hotel on Rundle Street, c.1860s.
Courtesy of the State Library of South Australia.
First established in 1851, the Exeter Hotel has been a fixture of Rundle Street East for more than 170 years, making it one of Adelaide’s longest continuously operating hotels. Rebuilt in 1882 and further remodelled in the early twentieth century, the hotel evolved alongside the neighbouring Adelaide Fruit and Produce Exchange, serving generations of market workers, traders and visitors at the heart of the city’s commercial east.
Its distinctive Victorian façade, with decorative parapets, rendered detailing and prominent corner presence, has long marked the eastern gateway to Rundle Street. While the hotel has adapted to changing tastes over the decades, it remains an enduring part of the East End’s social fabric, reflecting the precinct’s transition from a working market district into one of Adelaide’s most vibrant destinations for dining, entertainment and city life.
