Wells Cathedral, Somerset

Traditionally the first church of St. Andrew was founded at Wells as early as 705, but no historical records exist prior to 909, when the new see of Somerset was fixed at the little city beneath the Mendips. As a result of its promotion to cathedral rank, the church was soon afterwards rebuilt in stone, with a group of quasi-conventual buildings to house the secular priests who served it. This church probably survived into the reign of Stephen, when Bishop Robert of Lewes (1136-1166) set about its reconstruction with such vigour that a great Norman building was ready for consecration in 1148. But the splendour of the new church was short-lived. Little is known of Reginald de Bohun (1174-1191), save that he was an early friend of St. Hugh of Lincoln, whom he persuaded to come to Witham as prior of the first English Charterhouse; but it is practically certain that it was under this bishop’s direction that the remodelling of the building in its present form was largely carried out, on lines so revolutionary that the sureness and maturity of the design at its early period become a thing to wonder at. This Wells design does in fact represent a precocious and highly successful west-country experiment in Gothic before its time, that ranks with, and perhaps even surpasses in evolutionary significance, the work of St. Hugh at Lincoln or the Canterbury quire. It is hardly surprising that until quite recently it should have been attributed to the episcopacy of Jocelin some fifty years later, who actually was only responsible for the completion of the church on the same lines, with a laudable and scrupulous regard for the intentions of the earlier builders, and the addition of the magnificent west front. The cathedral may be said to have emerged practically in its present form under Dean John of Godelee (1306-1333), when the central tower was completed, the chapter-house raised on its earlier undercroft and the Lady Chapel added in 1326. The transformation of the east end was effected under Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury (1329-1363), with the addition of the three eastern bays of the presbytery and of the beautiful retro-quire, forming a processional path between the Lady Chapel and the church. Here the work to all intents and purposes ceased until the nineteenth century, when the restorations of Salvin and Ferrey wrought considerable mischief, including the substitution by the latter of the present tasteless ‘slate pencils’ for the decayed Purbeck shafting of the west front.

Though the building today does not stand out in conspicuous magnificence like a Durham or a Lincoln, it is nevertheless one of the most beautiful in its setting of all the English cathedrals. It stands on the edge of a quiet village-town, almost literally in the shadow of the Mendips, whose steep wooded escarpment rises practically from the fringes of the close. Its west front is approached across green lawns; on the south side of it lies the Tudor bishop’s palace, with its placid encircling moat and drawbridge gatehouse, and on the north, adjoining the chapter-house and Tudor deanery, is the grey backwater of the Vicars' Close, built for the Vicars Choral and forming one of the most complete domestic ranges of later medieval times. There is an extraordinary charm and repose in the grouping of these serene old buildings around the great church, whose fretted towers rise against a perfect natural background of green hills and woods.

The most striking exterior feature of the cathedral is its west front. In the words of Professor Prior, “it is easy to see such a work as no framework of merely architectural designing, but as a whole piece of sculpture, and to recognise its object as not of aesthetic composition but of religious presentation.” The Wells front does in fact represent a great screen of tabernacle-work, at the same time enveloping the free sides of the two towers, built to house the most remarkable display of medieval figure-sculpture in England, including a hierarchy of saints, priests and bishops, with kings, nobles, ladies and characters of legend and scripture. The rich central gable is crowned by a mutilated figure of Our Lord in Glory, with, beneath, a splendid range of the Apostles, practically intact, above tiers of angels and a panelled representation of the Doom. In this purely sculptural conception, relief is provided by a range of six boldly projecting buttresses, which cast long angular shadows and bring depth and texture to the composition. The elegantly buttressed towers were a fifteenth-century addition, and form a dignified architectural culmination to the rich variety of the earlier work.

The nave is plain in elevation, with Perpendicular tracery added in the lancet fenestration, and on the north side is a bold projecting porch, curiously arcaded on the interior with interpenetrating moldings, finely carved in the spandrels. The transepts are of shallow projection, and adjoining that of the north is the substantial octagonal chapter-house, with its broad windows and rich parapet, and the delightful fifteenth-century bridge across the road that connects with the Vicars’ Close. The central tower, though of no great height, is one of the most lovely and satisfying in England, dating from circa 1321, and, though simple in general treatment, finished with a delicate artistry of detail that compels real admiration. The east end, with the polygonal Lady Chapel and chapter-house, is the richest part of the fabric, designed with a broad elegance in its spacious fourteenth-century windows, flying buttresses and continuous pierced parapets, that can be judged most effectively from the foothills of the Mendips that rise behind it, whence the view over the cathedral is of a serene and unforgettable beauty that can hardly be surpassed in England.

Within, the Wells nave is of eight bays, of which the four eastern represent Bishop Reginald’s work. With its closely spaced piers, steep arches and deep-cut moldings, the design has a massive solidity, without heaviness, that is relieved by the delicate perfection of the carving of the stiff-leaf capitals, with its enchanting variety of interpellated figures and forms emerging almost insensibly from among the formal foliations. Of this fine school of early-Gothic sculpture it is only possible to mention a few famous examples, such as the cobbler, the fruit-stealers and their punishment, and the ‘toothache’ over Bishop Bytton’s tomb in the south quire aisle, which by association invested the relics of that worthy with a miraculous healing power over the complaint. The closely spaced lancets of the triforium form a continuous range from east to west that does much to accentuate the illusion of great length in the church, and the sharp springing of the plain sexpartite vault gives an impression of height inconsistent with the actual moderate dimensions.

But perhaps the most curious and distinctive features of the interior are the great inverted arches which have been thrown across quire, nave and transepts at the crossing. They were necessitated by the dangerous settlement of the main piers after the completion of the central tower, and their insertion (circa 1321) was a bold and structurally successful expedient which has been attributed to the innovating school of Severn masons responsible for the curious open vaulting in their native cathedral, and later for the recasing of the Gloucester quire. The aesthetic success of these girders (which is all they are in effect) is a matter of opinion, but their theatrical sensationalism is unquestionable, and a diagonal vista embracing three great arches, with their open spandrel eyes, at least provides a unique experience to the cathedral tourist. The fourteenth-century screen, reduced to insignificance by Salvin during the last century, is largely obscured by this arrangement. East of it, the quire consists of the two distinct designs of Bishop Reginald and Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury each of three bays to west and east respectively, unified by the delicate vertical remodelling of the triforium during the fourteenth century, and the addition over all of a lofty vault, patterned with cusped lierne ribs, and in its proportions and detail one of the most beautiful in any English cathedral. The treatment of the triforium is as remarkable as it is successful. To all intents and purposes it forms a continuous range of rich attenuated tabernacle-work, from which unfortunately the statues have vanished; and in Bishop Ralph's three eastern bays the slender shafting descends deep into the spandrels of the arcade. In addition to the lofty Jesse window at the east end, four entire windows of the clerestory retain their old glass, but all the fittings of the quire are modern.

The polygonal Lady Chapel (circa 1326) is one of the most exquisite smaller works of English Gothic, and its range of tall windows still  glows with something of the old richness of colour, though mostly a kaleidoscope of glass fragments. Its vaulting is a somewhat remarkable achievement, dispensing with the central pier and culminating in a boss carved with a beautiful figure of Christ in Glory. This Lady Chapel was planned as a separate octagonal block, and its later inclusion in the church was effected by a complex disposition of free-standing vaulting piers, with slender Purbeck shafts and richly foliated capitals, that constitutes the present retro-quire. Here, the varied vistas among the piers are of a singular beauty, each terminating in a deep glow of colour from the Lady Chapel windows. The aisle ends of the quire and the small eastern transepts form a group of minor chapels to house the bishops’ tombs, of which the cathedral contains a notable series, including the rich Perpendicular chantries of Hugh Sugar and Bishop Bubwith in the nave.

From the north quire aisle, a passage leads to the thirteenth-century undercroft of the chapter-house, massively roofed with a low ribbed vault. The upper storey is approached from the north transept, where the astronomical clock, installed about 1390, is kept in working order, and “Jack Blandiver” still kicks his bell with great regularity at each quarter of the hour. A door gives access to the famous double-branching stone staircase leading to the bridge and chapter-house, and the latter is entered to the east through a graceful doorway of open tracery. Its interior is one of the most beautiful of its sort in any English cathedral, lighted by eight spacious traceried windows that fill the upper parts of each wall, and contain notable fragments of old glass in their heads. The central pier is built of clustered shafts of Purbeck, and from the capital springs a myriad-branching growth of slender ribs, caught in transverse lierne ties and studded with carved bosses. The cloister was built by Bishop Beckyngton, during the first half of the fifteenth century, between the south transept and south-west tower, and lacks a north walk. The same bishop was responsible for the three fine gateways in the close.

Pevsner.

Wells. It lies within its ancient walls in the 20th century like a small mediaeval town, a matchless place. For twelve centuries there has been a church at Wells, since Ina, the Somerset-born king of the South of England long before Alfred, founded a shrine for his Saxon subjects.  The Normans followed the Saxons, and a few Norman stones remain, but the cathedral as we see it was begun in the 12th and finished in the 13th century. It is not what it has been for

There is nothing so beautiful now
As it used to be;

but, though the stones of Wells may crumble, its glory will not pass away. It has been here 700 years and will stand 700 years more. It is unique as a cathedral group, the most complete example we have of what an ecclesiastical city was like in the days when the Church ruled the world.

Nearly all that is great in it lies by its walls - the cathedral like no other, the staircase leading to its noble chapter house, the Chain Bridge leading to the lovely Vicar’s Close, the cloisters with the doorway through which bishops have walked to their moated palace for about 800 years, the great palace itself with the moat still flowing round its superb walls, the bishop’s barn, the deanery, the Penniless Porch, all gathered round the famous green on which for generation after generation travellers have stood spellbound before the finest assembly of mediaeval sculpture in these islands.

The great front is nearly 150 feet across, and it was raised in tier after tier of sculpture, six lines running across, up and round the towers, crowned by a row of angels and another of apostles with Christ reigning over all. Many of the figures have gone and some are broken.

On each side rise the 14th century and 15th century towers, the northern tower showing Bishop Bubwith at prayer; he left money for it and built an almshouse in the town. The great towers stand majestically apart, independent and not encroaching on the nave, and behind them, rising superbly in the centre of this wonderful mass, is the noble tower set up by the earliest English builders as high as the roof and carried higher in the 14th century. We can climb to the top of it and see the valley in which this wondrous city stands.

There is no cathedral anywhere more interesting outside, and we walk round the walls enchanted by their beauty. The northern wall has one of the finest porches in England, lofty, with a vaulted roof, its walls arcaded, its spandrels filled with queer beasts, a stringcourse finished with dragons swallowing the end of the string and their tails twisting along the moulding.

A little farther along the northern wall rises the stone staircase which runs to the chapter house, to the bridge across the road, and then down into Vicar’s Close - as charming a place as we have come upon, like a tiny mediaeval street surviving in the modern world, with 21 houses on each side, all with tall chimneys, leading to the little chapel at the end with the library over it. It is one of the delightful surprises of Wells, and has looked much as we see it for about 500 years. Bishop Ralph’s chapel, built in the 14th century and made new in the 15th, has the original altar stone in the sanctuary, and the rough old screen has been preserved. There is 15th century glass with Bishop Bubwith’s arms in it, and the ceiling of the library is also 15th century. Number 22 in the Close has been restored to its original 15th century proportions, and the Hall is a remarkable 14th century building with fine mediaeval furniture, rare old glass, brass and pewter, and ancient charters and books, including one of the 12th century.

Outside the Close, just through the Chain Bridge, is one of the loveliest windows in Wells, a delightful oriel which has been photographed thousands of times and has looked down on the comings and goings of Wells since the 15th century.

Between the road and the chapter house stands one of the almost hidden beauties of Wells, the charming 15th century Prebendal House nestling against this lovely mass of masonry, and approached by a beautiful porch.

Far away on the other side of it all is the old bishop’s barn, a simple but stately structure 110 feet long, with immense buttresses.

The bishop’s palace itself, a magnificent group started by Jocelin 700 years ago, is perhaps the rarest bishop’s home now left in England, set in a great quadrangle surrounded by a magnificent wall, outside which the moat looks still as it has looked since the walls were built. Thrilling it is to walk along these walls and look about us, with the ruins of the great chamber now open to the roof, and nothing but the walls left of a great hall that was big enough for a marketplace. The bishop’s chapel is still intact, with its vaulted roof and the fine foliage on its capitals.

It is true, no doubt, that all who come into the great nave of Wells are at first a little hurt by something like a gigantic figure eight, two massive inverted arches. There are three pairs of them facing the nave and the transepts, and they hold up the central tower. They are a unique device for averting the peril threatening the cathedral 600 years ago, and through all that time they have held up the great tower in the watery soil of Wells. There are those who are hurt by them; there are those who declare that they have a kind of beauty in themselves; and there are those who after a while get used to them and cease to look on them as an architect’s freak, refusing to let them spoil the impression of one of the most remarkable interiors the genius of our English builders has ever set up. Remarkable it is from whatever angle we consider it- - its general impressiveness, the richness of its decoration, the matchless carving of its capitals, its splendid tombs, its very precious glass, the wonderful peep through its forest of columns with the sunlight falling through its western windows, its unique set of misericords, its noble chapter house, or the marvellous stone stairway leading to it.

Between the last pair of the great piers on each side of the nave are set two tiny chantries, one to Bishop Bubwith and one to a treasurer of the cathedral with the curious name of Sugar, both 15th century men. The chantries face each other, and both are gems. We can sit in them and think of the wonder of this solemn place. They have six sides and fine tracery. In the Sugar Chantry the canopy of the altar is like lace, and there are angels with delicate wings and curly hair. Steps from this chantry lead to one of Somerset’s four mediaeval stone pulpits. Two other chapels are in the south transept: those of St Martin and St Callixtus. In St Martin’s lies Chancellor William Biconyll (one of the 47 ways of spelling his name). He lies in cassock and surplice, and the light falls on him through a window with magnificent modern figures of familiar heroes. In this small place is kept a book with the name of every Somerset man (11,275) killed in the Great War. Divided from St Martin’s by a screen lies a figure on a nameless tomb in the chapel of St Callixtus. If it is nameless it is at least famous, for it has a series of panels with stately figures of three priests said to be matchless for their mediaeval vestments, set between two panels probably unique. In one of them is a delightful Madonna in a close-fitting kirtle with a mantle falling gracefully round her. She is holding up her hands as in surprise, probably at the small figure of Gabriel descending from above. In front of her is a pot with a lily. At the other end is a remarkable figure of the Eternal Father with his crucified Son. All five figures are the original work of 15th century craftsmen and are charming.

In the two chapels of the north transept (reached from the choir aisle) are two contrasting tombs, one an 18th century monument set up to Bishop Kidder, a piece of pompous monumental masonry, and the other the charming figure of a bishop of Shakespeare’s day, John Still, looking lovely in a long red cloak. Every child should come to see him, for he wrote Little Jack Homer. Not far from Bishop Still is an  exquisite carving of a lizard on a corbel. Under a canopy of three bays in the south transept lies one of the best sculptured figures in Wells, that of Bishop Marcia, who died just after the 14th century began. He lies on a cushion supported by beautiful heads of angels, and there are six heads along the front of the tomb.

Yet it is in the east end of Wells that its chief richness lies; we are not halfway through this wonder of 700 years. In the aisles round the choir sleep a long line of faithful bishops going back 900 years. The sculptures are 13th century, but the old bishops have been identified and their bones are in wooden boxes with stone casings, inside the tombs. In these aisles lie most of the famous bishops of Wells. One of the first engraved figures made in England is on a stone over Bishop Bytton, whose tomb was long supposed to be a cure for toothache; his coffin has been opened and his skeleton seen in perfect order, every bone in its right place, his teeth in fine condition after 600 years. Close by, within one of the most beautiful iron grilles in this country, lies a famous bishop who made an image of his own skeleton so that he could look at it; it is here under a wonderful canopy. Above lies Bishop Beckington as in life. Over his figure rises a beautifully painted canopy with a reredos of panels and tracery, and a miniature piscina. The top of it has a small vault of fan tracery and pendants; there are angels with finely wrought wings spreading over the arches, and traces of the original colour after nearly 500 years. Let into the reredos is a carved oak panel showing the Scourging, the Crucifixion, and the Road to Calvary. Lying with his face towards all this is the figure of the old bishop as he was in his glory, while under him is his skeleton. For 13 years he moved about this cathedral with this tomb in its place. The marvellous screen within which the bishop lies as in life and as in death is one of the treasures of Wells, and is probably matchless for its decoration with tiny faces. One shows the bishop himself in his mitre, apparently a portrait, and there is on one of the uprights a row of three faces unsurpassed by anything of the kind we have seen.

Next to the Beckington tomb is something finer still: a 19th century bishop with lion cubs at his feet. He is Lord Arthur Harvey, and the figure is by Thomas Brock, as beautiful as anything of mediaeval days, with stone flowing like fine linen. The alabaster figure of Bishop Harewell of the 15th century has two hares at his feet. On another tomb is the figure of Bishop Giso, appointed by Edward the Confessor and carrying on to William Rufus, a great conciliator in the Conqueror’s day. There is an alabaster figure of Bishop Ralph in all the episcopal ornaments of the 14th century, and in a chapel of the north-east transept lies the rich alabaster tomb of Bishop Creyghton, who was in exile with Charles II and was made bishop by him on his return, in gratitude for which he gave the magnificent brass lectern in the nave. On it we read of his 15 years of exile with the king, and on the book-rest is the great Bible from which the bishop used to read. He would preach from the stone pulpit, for it was built in the reign of Henry VIII.

On the east wall of the chapel in which Bishop Creyghton lies is an ancient sculpture of the Ascension; it has traces of colour and is very charming for the upturned faces of the group of people looking on. In this chapel also is a figure of a chancellor of the cathedral who died 600 years ago, and not far away (near the ancient cope chest) lies the 14th century Dean Godelee. Hereabouts is a heavy carved frieze of acorns which has been rescued from the cowhouse of an old manor, and close by, in the north wall of the transept, is a canopied recess in which a 14th century stone figure is wearing away.

It is in the choir that we have what seems to us the loveliest peep of Wells, and it is fitting it should be so, for here is the oldest bit of the cathedral, the three western bays built at the very beginning of English building; they are 12th century. Here also are 60 of the finest misericords still left in England, the work of the original craftsmen of the cathedral. They show the usual variety of groups and scenes: a man riding backwards on a horse, an ape with a basket of fruit, a mermaid and a lion, dragons biting each other’s tails, and a fox preaching to four geese, one asleep.

Below the magnificent Jesse window are seven niches with statues in them, all modern and all fine. Higher over the altar above this row of sculpture is one of the noblest Jesse windows in existence, a blaze of gold, with the figure of Jesse lying at the base as if meditating on that wondrous line of David that was to lead to Bethlehem. From his figure, as from the stem of the vine, comes the trunk of the tree with the Madonna and the Child both under canopies; Calvary is above; majestic figures in cloaks of red and green and gold stand about Jesse at the foot; and there is David with his harp and Solomon with the temple in his hand.

Standing here and looking beyond, through the columns behind the choir and into the lady chapel, we have perhaps the finest single view in Wells, like a rainbow of colour seen through a forest of columns. The richness and depths of the scene are not to be forgotten. It is from the windows of the lady chapel that the colour comes. They are filled with 14th century glass, much of it in mosaic fragments but all aglow with colour. There are 20,000 leaded fragments in four windows alone, and there are also among this fine old glass many quaint figures. They are in three eastern windows, which have figures of angels blowing trumpets, David and other patriarchs, the Madonna, Eve and the Serpent, Moses, and a number of bishops. There are about 50 of these extraordinary figures in all.

It is in the lady chapel and the choir that we find the best glass of Wells, but there is little anywhere that is poor. The clerestory windows have old figures of saints, one with St George in mail. The choir aisles and chapels have good glass of the 14th century, and there are figures of St Michael, Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist, and Paul teaching Timothy. There is beautiful glass also above the tabernacle work of the choir. The great west window of the nave has three long lancets, outer ones with 17th century glass, the middle one with glass renewed last century.

Among the things that are unique in Wells is one of worldwide fame, the chapter house, with its marvellous staircase and the Undercroft. The Undercroft, used in ancient times as a treasury, has still the heavy wooden doors that guarded its possessions. The inner doorway has beautiful hinges, and the outer door is studded with nails and has great bolts and a huge lock. In the doorway is a piscina with the carving of a dog gnawing a bone, and close by is a charming stone lantern projecting from the wall; it must have held a candle. Hanging from the ceiling of the Undercroft is a wooden canopy under which the pyx was hung before the altar 600 years ago. It is four feet high, divided in three storeys of open tracery, and has a crest of oak leaves.

Here we open a door and look up a staircase like no other in England. Somebody has said that parts of it are like a heap of windswept leaves, so curiously do the steps sweep this way and that, some leading to the chapter house, some up to the Chain Bridge over the street. In a window at the top of the staircase is a lovely small figure of a woman in a yellow dress and a grey cloak she has been wearing since 1320.

The chapter house is 13th century, a little younger than the stairway. It has a central shaft with 18 columns round and 30 ribs of vaulting, each with a carved boss at the end. There are eight great windows and 51 canopied seats round the walls, all crowned with faces in stone - kings, queens, monks, bishops, abbots, and wild-looking men, nearly all smiling. Everywhere the work of these 13th century craftsmen is small and exceeding rich. There are 150 tiny heads on pinnacles, about 800 acanthus leaves about the seats, thousands of ballflowers running round the windows and canopies, and about half-a-mile of small carving running everywhere.

He would never be forgiven by either young or old who omitted Jack Blandifer and his clock from the story of Wells. Jack sits high up in the triforium above the north transept as he has sat for about 500 years, kicking his heels every quarter of an hour through all these centuries to set two knights in armour striking the bells with their battleaxes outside the walls, and little mounted knights running round on horseback on the wall below him in the transept. It is one of the sights of Wells.

The old clock was marking time at the end of the 14th century, and it is to some craftsman in that far-back age that we must be thankful for whatever amusement or astonishment this marvellous mechanism gives us. Its mechanical parts have long since been renewed (though the old works are still going at South Kensington), and the figures can hardly be as they were, but for hundreds of years at most of the hours of the day a small group has stood watching this wonder work as the hours go by. The face of the dial is over six feet wide, set in a square frame, the spandrels filled with angels holding the Four Winds. The outer circle has 24 sections representing the hours, and the hand that points to them touches them with a golden sun. The second circle shows the minutes, and a small star moves round it. The third circle gives the days of the month and a crescent with a pointer shows the age of the moon. Above this dial is a little panelled tower round which four knights on horseback run both ways whenever Jack Blandifer kicks his feet on the point of the hour.

For those who, amid the great impressiveness of this mediaeval city, seek change or contrast in smaller things, there is a Wells with a jolly marketplace hemmed in by houses, shops, and inns. There is the splendid church of St Cuthbert which would be much visited in any ordinary town, if only for its fine tower and roof and its richly carved 15th century font cover, found in a stable and restored to the church; there is the town hall, which, though largely modern, has some interesting portraits (Charles II and his brother James, the fighting Peter Mews and other bishops among them) and also a letter from Charles I asking for £500; there is the 17th century Crown Inn with its picturesque yard, and the Conduit standing in the marketplace like a cross; there is the 14th century bakery in St Thomas Street, and the old almshouses - notably those founded in the 15th century by Bishop Bubwith, with a mediaeval hall containing a money chest 600 years old. There are peeps innumerable through gateways, round corners, and across open spaces.

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