Walter Stapledon was born at Annery in the parish of Monkleigh, North Devon, England, on the 1st of February 1261, the son of Sir Richard Stapledon, descended from a noble stock. The Stapledons originated at the estate of Stapledon, in the parish of Cookbury, near Holsworthy, Devon. His elder brother was Richard Stapledon (d. 1320) of Annery, a judge, whose monument survives in Exeter Cathedral near that of his brother the bishop.
He became professor of canon law at Oxford and chaplain to Pope Clement V and in 1307 was chosen bishop of Exeter. He went on errands to France for both Edward I and Edward II, and attended the councils and parliaments of his time. As lord high treasurer of England, an office to which he was appointed in 1320, the bishop was associated in the popular mind with the misdeeds of Edward II. , and consequently, after the king fled before the advancing troops of Queen Isabella, he was murdered in London by the mob on the 15th of October 1326. Stapledon is famous as the founder of Exeter College, Oxford, which originated in Stapledon Hall, established in 1314 by the bishop and his elder brother, Sir Richard Stapledon, a judge of the king's bench. He also contributed very liberally to the rebuilding of his cathedral at Exeter.
Stapledon's monument is located in Exeter Cathedral in the choir on the north side of the high altar, and is the cathedral's most important 14th-century monument. It consists of a recumbent effigy within a gothic canopy all made of Beer stone. The colour scheme dates from an early 19th-century restoration since restored again. The effigy is shown in pontificalibus and holds in his left hand a crozier and in his right hand a book. On the outside of the tomb at his feet is shown a heraldic escutcheon bearing the bishop's arms. On the ceiling of the canopy, invisible to the casual observer, but looking down onto the bishop's effigy is a contemporary painting of Christ displaying his Five Holy Wounds. In 1733 the monument was repaired at the cost of Exeter College, Oxford, his foundation, and was apparently re-painted with bright colours. In the summer of 1805 however at the direction of Bishop John Fisher (reg. 1803–1807) the removal was effected of "the gaudy colours with which the whole of the monument had been painted". In the late 1950s the monument was restored and recoloured. In the 1980s the mediaeval painting on the ceiling of the canopy was restored.
