County Ground Stadium
rugby union, greyhound racing and speedway stadium
The County Ground Stadium, also previously known as the Devon County Athletic Ground, was a rugby union, greyhound racing and speedway stadium in Exeter, Devon.
It was one of two separate venues in Exeter known as the County Ground, along with the still-used County Cricket Ground. It is also not to be confused with the Exeter Greyhound Stadium in Marsh Barton that also held greyhound racing and speedway.
Origins
The first sporting use of the site was the 19th century, where the land behind the church in St Thomas, just off Cowick Street, was used for cricket, football, wrestling, and other sports. By July 1841, over an acre of land had been developed to form a wrestling ring, with temporary raised covered seating. Wrestling was popular between hay and corn harvests, with prize money of 100 sovereigns.
In 1888, the field was put up for sale, and in 1893 it was purchased by the newly formed Devon County Athletic Company Ltd, led by former mayor Robert Pople. The company build the first permanent grandstand with a capacity of 700. As well as the field, the ground had an elliptical cycling track around the edge.
The company funded work on the ground by issuing of £6,000 of share capital in £1 share lots.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “County Ground Stadium” as rugby union, greyhound racing and speedway stadium. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as rugby union, greyhound racing and speedway stadium. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19872332. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1841, 1888 and 1893.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “County Ground Stadium” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.