WELLS
THE CATHEDRAL AND SEE

-^y^^CS CATHEDRAL SERIES

-H PLAN AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Yale Center for British Art and British Studies

BELL'S CATHEDRAL SERIES:
EDITED BY GLEESON WHITE
AND EDWARD F. STRANGE

WELLS

THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF
WELLS
A DESCRIPTION OF ITS FABRIC
AND A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE
EPISCOPAL SEE

REV. PERCY DEARMER, M.A.

WITH FORTY-SIX

ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON GEORGE BELL & SONS 1898

W, H. WHITE AND CO. LTD.
RIVERSIDE PRESS EDINBURGH.

GENERAL PREFACE

This series of monographs has been planned to supply visitors
to the great English Cathedrals with accurate and well illus
trated guide-books at a popular price. The aim of each writer
has been to produce a work compiled with sufficient knowledge
and scholarship to be of value to the student of Archaeology
and History, and yet not too technical in language for the use
of an ordinary visitor or tourist.
To specify all the authorities which have been made use of
in each case would be difficult and tedious in this place. But
amongst the general sources of information which have been
almost invariably found useful are: — (i) the great county
histories, the value of which, especially in questions of gene
alogy and local records, is generally recognised; (2) the
numerous papers by experts which appear from time to
time in the Transactions of the Antiquarian and Archasological
Societies; (3) the important documents made accessible in
the series issued by the Master of the Rolls; (4) the well-
known works of Britton and Willis on the English Cathedrals ;
and (s) the very excellent series of Handbooks to the
Cathedrals originated by the late Mr John Murray ; to which
the reader may in most cases be referred for fuller detail,
especially in reference to the histories of the respective sees.
Gleeson White,
E. F. Strange,
Editors of the Series.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The writer about cathedrals nowadays is one who, reaping
where he has not sown, and gathering where he has not
strawed, is indebted for most that he says to the patient
labours of other and wiser men. Nowhere does one feel this
more than at Wells. The admirable Somerset Archaeological
Society has gone on accumulating information about the
cathedral for more years than the present writer has lived.
Professor Freeman produced twenty-eight years ago, in his
" History of the Cathedral Church of Wells," a little book
which has since been a model for all works of the kind, and
of which one can still say that no one can understand all that
is contained in the word " cathedral " unless he has read it.
Yet since that book was written much fresh material has been
discovered, and the theories then held as to the building of
the cathedral have been in great measure disproved. To
Canon C. M. Church, in his " Chapters in the Early History
of Wells," and his papers read before the Somerset Society, we
are indebted for most valuable statements of the new historical
discoveries, and to his untiring kindness I am myself beholden
to a greater extent than I can express.
Wells so abounds in interesting detail, that the exigencies of
space have made it necessary to curtail the last chapter, which
contains the history of the diocese; a good deal of interesting
matter has thus been cut from my original MS. of this chapter,
and many bishops have been dismissed more summarily than
they deserve. The need of dealing properly with the cathedral
itself must be my apology for the baldness of this last chapter
as it now stands. Those who desire a further acquaintance
with the history of the diocese cannot do better than consult
Mr Hunt's "Bath and Wells," in the excellent Diocesan
Histories series of the Society for the Promotion of Christian
Knowledge. To many other writers on the Cathedral Church of Wells,
acknowledgments and references will be found scattered
throughout the present volume. I must also express my
thanks to Mr Philips, and Messrs Dawkes & Partridge of
Wells, for permission to reproduce their photographs, and
to Mr W. Heywood and Mr H. P. Clifford for their
drawings.
P. D.

CONTENTS
PAGE
Chapter I. — History of the Church . . 3
Chapter II. — Exterior . . . .20
West Front . .... 21
Statuary, Central Doorway, the Tiers . 30
Western Towers ... .44
Central Tower . . . 47
North Porch . . . 47
North Transept . 51
Walls, Parapet 52
Chain Gate . . . . . .52
Chapter-House . . -54
From the South-East ... 55
Cloister . .... -58
Library . 63
Museum .... .64
Vicar's Close  . .66
Bishop's Palace, Great Hall, Barn . . . . 67
Deanery, Archdeaconry, etc., St. Cuthbert's .... 70
Chapter III. — Interior  73
Nave, etc. ... 77
Capitals . . . • . ' • 79
Glass . . .84
Bubwith's Chapel . ... 85
Sugar's Chapel . . . 86
Pulpit, Lectern . . 87
Transepts ... . . 89
Capitals . . • . -89
Fon,t, Monuments . .  95
Transepts Chapels— St. Martin, St. Calixtus, St. David, Holy
Cross ... . . . .98
Clock ...  105
Inverted Arches . . . . 107
Tower, Screen, Organ . . .110
Choir ... 113
Misericords, Glass . . . 120
Choir Aisles, Monuments . .123
Eastern Transepts, Monuments . . ... 124
Procession Path . . . .128
Glass in Choir Aisles and Chapels . . 130
Lady Chapel, Glass . • . . -133
Chapter-House Staircase . ... 134
Chapter- 1 louse . . .... -137
Undercroft ... .... . 141
Chapter IV. — History of the Diocese and Foundation . . .147

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Wells Cathedral from St. Andrew's Spring Frontispiece
Arms of the See .... . Title
The Cathedral from the South-East . . 2
The Cathedral in the Seventeenth Century . . 15
South Aisle of Nave . . 19
West Front — Bishop of Aethelhelm . 22
The West Front ... -23
Ornaments in the West Front . . 28, 29
West Front — Christina ..... . ¦ Z^
The Central Tower from the South-East ... 45
The North Porch . . '49
The Bishop's Eye ... • • 53
Doorway, South-East of Cloister . 58
East Walk of Cloister . . 59
The Chain Gate, Entrance to Close, 1824 65
The Bishop's Palace 68
The Nave .... . . 75
A Capital — The Fruit-stealer's Punishment 79
A Capital — Toothache . . 8 1
Specimens of Capitals . ... 82, 83, 84, 148, 149
View across Nave, showing Sugar's and Bubwith's Chapels . 85
Sugar's Chapel — The Lectern and Pulpit .... 88
Section of North Transept, and Elevation of South Transept 90
Capitals in Transept ..... . . 92
The South Transept, from North Side of Nave 93
The Font .... ¦ ¦ 95
The Annunciation — Husse's Tomb loi
Priest in Surplice — Husse's Tomb 102
The East End in 1823 . . 103
The Inverted Arches 109
Choir, looking West 1 1 1
Choir, looking East . . . uc
Procession Path and Lady Chapel . . 129
Steps of the Chapter-House Vestibule, etc. . . . 135
Chapter-House Doorway . . .1^8
Chapter-House Interior . , . 139
Chapter-House Vault . j^^l
Chapter-House Undercroft . 142, 143
Section of Chapter-House ' t.c
¦Dt . X, tJ

Plan

160

Dawkes 6^ Partridge., Photo.']

WELLS FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.

WELLS CATHEDRAL
CHAPTER I
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH
" The Gothic Cathedral," wrote Froude, an author who held
no brief for the Gothic period, " is perhaps, on the whole, the
most magnificent creation which the mind of man has as yet
thrown out." The Cathedral Church of Wells, wrote Froude's
predecessor in the same historical chair, is " the best example
to be found in the whole world of a secular church, with its
subordinate buildings." " There is no other place," Professor
Freeman went on to say, " where you can see so many of the
ancient buildings still standing, and still put to their own use."
And surely there is no place better fitted to be their home
than this beautiful old city of Wells, set in the midst of the
fair westfrn country, the land of Avalon and Camelot, of
Athelney and Wedmore.
This unique group of buildings does not, however, take us
back earlier than the close of the Norman period. Of what
existed before, we have but scant evidence. Tradition says
that King Ina had, about the year 705, founded at Wells a
college of secular priests, and therefore a church of some sort.
And when King Eadward the Elder, taking advantage of the
peace which his father Alfred had secured, fixed, in 909, the
new Somersetshire see by the fountain of St. Andrew at Wells,
he seems to have chosen that little city because there already
existed therein a church, large enough to serve as a cathedral
in those times, and tended already by a body of secular canons.
Now that the ancient church of St. Andrew was raised to this
new dignity, it was probably in the tenth century rebuilt in
stone, with plain round-headed windows, and perhaps a small
unbuttressed tower to hold the bells ; for, when Giso became 3

4 WELLS CATHEDRAL
bishop in the next century (1061-1088), he erected a whole
cluster of quasi-conventual buildings, but we are not told that
he found it necessary to rebuild the church, although he com
plained that he found it mean and its revenues small. Indeed,
the fact that Giso was buried under an arch in the wall on the
north side of the high altar, as his predecessor Duduc had been
buried on the south side, shows that he had not rebuilt the
church. On Giso's death, John de Villula at once swept away his
buildings, and set up a bishop's house on their site. John,
however, made Bath his cathedral church, and suffered the
church of Wells to fall into the decay from which it was rescued
by the first " Maker of Wells," Bishop Robert of Lewes.
The active episcopate of Robert of Lewes (1136-66) was
as important an era in the history of the church as in that
of the chapter. In spite of the anarchy of Stephen's reign,
Robert set steadily to work ; and, while the neighbouring
barons were battering each other's castles, the bishop reared
the first great cathedral church of Wells. How much of
the old Saxon building he left we cannot tell ; but it was in
a ruinous condition, and he may have pulled it completely
down, or he may have left one part for later builders to
deal with. In 1 148 his new Norman church was consecrated,
a massive round-arched building, its nave perhaps as large
as the present one, and its choir under the tower with a small
presbytery beyond. This date may be taken as the beginning
of the present cathedral ; for all the succeeding reconstructions
followed the lines of Bishop Robert's church. Yet the Norman
work has disappeared almost as completely as the Saxon, and
the font is the only object which can be claimed as undoubtedly
Romanesque. Of distinctly Norman mouldings there are none
in the church, and only a few fragments in other places.
Seldom has one of those strong Norman buildings so utterly
vanished from sight. But many stones dressed in the Norman
fashion can still be traced by the expert in the eastern part
of the church (p. 74), having been no doubt used up again by
the later workmen ; and there may be masses of undisturbed
masonry hidden in the walls.
Bishop Robert, as we know from one of his charters, did
something also for the order of his church. Mammon had
gradually encroached upon the sacred precincts, and the

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH 5
markets had come to be held in the " vestibule,'' and in the
church, itself ; the busy hum of the buyers and sellers marred
the quiet of God's house, and disturbed the people at their
devotions. Strong measures were necessary, and the bishop
ordered the market to be held at some distance from the
church, while at the same time, as an act of grace, he remitted
the tolls that were due to him as lord of the manor. Thus
did he lay the foundation of the liberties of Wells city while
securing the sanctity of Wells Cathedral.
According to Bishop Godwin (1616), and the anonymous
fifteenth century MSS., called in Wharton's Anglia Sacra the
" Canon of Wells," there was a blank in the history of the
church between Bishop Robert, who consecrated the Norman
building in 1148, and Bishop Jocelin, whose episcopate lasted
from 1206 to 1242. Godwin, who exaggerated a passage
from the " Canon of Wells " (which that writer had produced
by exaggerating a single sentence of a preamble of Jocelin, p. 7),
declared that Jocelin found the church " as ready to fall,"
and " pulled down the greatest part of it, to witte, the west
ende, and built it anew from the very foundation." This
became the accepted view. But the documents recently
brought to light through the labours of those who unearthed
and deciphered the MSS. in possession of the chapter, have
proved that the energetic Bishop Reginald, so far from letting
the church go into ruin during his episcopate (1174-1191), did
in reality rebuild it himself. Much travelled, conversant
with all kinds of churches and cities in an age of great
building operations, he was not the sort of man to neglect his
cathedral. And, as a matter of fact, he is proved to have
begun the present church by a charter recently found, which
is of a date prior to 11 80, and therefore belongs to the early
years of his episcopate. In this important document, recog
nising his duty to provide "that the honour due to God
should not be tarnished by the squalor of His house," he
arranges in full chapter for a munificent grant in support of
the fabric, until the work be finished.* Another charter of
Reginald's time, which conveys a private gift to the church,
alludes to " the admirable structure of the rising church," thus
testifying to the successful progress of the bishop's plan dur
ing his own lifetime. The part which he built, there can be
* Somerset Proceedings, 1888, ii. 5.

6 WELLS CATHEDRAL
little doubt, included the three western bays of the choir
(which then formed the presbytery), the transepts, north porch,
and the eastern bays of the nave. That is to say, on entering
the church one is looking upon Reginald's work, and not
Jocelin's ; for, although the rest of the nave was completed
by Jocelin, it was done in accordance with Reginald's original
plan. It is of great importance to remember this fact, since until
recently the nave, with the other parts just mentioned, was
attributed by Professor Willis, Professor Freeman, and most
authorities to Jocelin. Willis, indeed, bowed to what was
then thought to be documentary evidence against his own
judgment; for he declared the work to be of a style much
earlier than that of Jocelin's time (p. 73). Now we know
almost to a certainty that the bulk of the cathedral belongs
neither to the late Norman period of Robert, nor to the
Early English of Jocelin, but to the period just between the
two, that of Reginald de Bohun.
During the episcopate of Reginald's immediate successor
Savaric (1192-1205), something further may have been done
to the nave. But there was small opportunity for church
building during this bishop's wandering and litigious life ;
and all we know for certain is that, owing no doubt to the
civil war, the intolerable exactions of papal legates, and the
quarrel with Glastonbury, the cathedral church of Wells had
fallen into a state of dilapidation when Jocelin became bishop
in 1206; and that it remained in this condition till King John
was dead : for Jocelin was an exile abroad, the property of
the see was confiscated, and its income paid yearly into the
king's purse.
From the year 12 18, when the land was again at peaCe,
and a profitable arrangement had been come to with the
monks of Glastonbury, Jocelin devoted himself to the fabric
and chapter of Wells, up to the year of his death in 1242.
Grants of money and of timber, which are extant, show that
by 1220 the work was recommenced, and that it was in
progress in 1225. By 1239 the church was sufficiently ad
vanced to be dedicated.
Jocelin and his brother Hugh (afterwards Bishop of
Lincoln) were natives of the city they loved so well. They
had both lived through Reginald's episcopate — Jocelin as

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH 7
canon and Hugh as archdeacon of Wells. After, when they
rose to high positions as judges, and became honourably rich,
Hugh, who built much in Lincoln Cathedral, gave largely
of his great wealth to Jocelin for Wells, and Jocelin himself
spent all that he had upon the place where he had been
brought up from infancy.
Thus Jocelin was in a real sense a " maker of Wells.''
But he was not the only maker, for he must share the honour
with two other master builders — Robert, whose work is entirely
gone, and Reginald, whose work remains. He did not, as
Godwin led us to suppose, pull down and rebuild the whole
church. But he loyally carried on the work of his predecessor, "
and he executed the great work which has been always rightly
attributed to him, the present west front ; this he joined
to Reginald's unfinished nave by building the three western
bays in strict accordance with the earlier style. The front
belongs to the fully-developed Early English style in which
Salisbury is built, agreeing exactly with the date of the conse
cration of the church by Jocelin in 1239, — as was pointed out
by Professor Willis, who was puzzled by the great difference
in its style from that of the nave, which was then thought to
belong to the same period. We know that Jocelin was a
frequent visitor to Salisbury while Bishop Poore was building
it; and thus all the lines of evidence combine to support
the unshaken tradition that Jocelin was the author of the
west front.
A month before his death in 1242, Jocelin de Wells put forth
a charter for the increased endowment of the cathedral staff;
and it was because of a few chance words in the preamble that
he came to be credited with the construction of the whole.
Having found the church in danger of ruin, runs the passage,
by reason of its age aedificare coepimus et ampliare — in qua adeo
profecimus — quod ipsam consecravimus. This, which need mean
nothing more than extensive building operations, is the sole
foundation for the tradition that Jocelin pulled down the old
church and built a new one.
The condition of the church at the end of the thirteenth
century is thus described by Professor Freeman * :
" By the end of the thirteenth century we may look upon
the church of Wells as at last finished. It still lacked much
* History of the Cathedral, p. 98.

8 WELLS CATHEDRAL
of that perfection of outline which now belongs to it, and which
the next age was finally to give to it. Many among that match
less group of surrounding buildings which give Wells its chief
charm, had not yet arisen. The church itself, with its un
finished towers, must have had a dwarfed and stunted look from
every point. The Lady Chapel had not yet been reared, with
its apse alike to contrast with the great window of the square
presbytery above it, and to group in harmony with the more
lofty chapter-house of its own form. The cloister was still of
wood. The palace was still undefended by wall or moat. The
Vicars' Close and its chain-bridge had not yet been dreamt of.
Still, the church, alike in its fabric and its constitution, may
be looked on as having by this time been brought to perfec
tion. . . . The nave, recast in forms of art such as Ina and
Eadward, such as Gisa and Robert, had never dreamed of, with
the long range of its arcades and the soaring sweep of its newly-
vaulted roof, stood, perfect from western door to rood-loft, ever
ready, ever open, to welcome worshippers from city and village,
from hill and combe and moor, in every corner of the land
which looked to Saint Andrew's as its mother church. The
choir, the stalls of the canons, the throne of the Bishop, were
still confined within the narrow space of the crossing ; but that
narrow space itself gave them a dignity which they lost in later
arrangements. For the central lantern, not yet driven to lean
on ungainly props, with the rich arcades of its upper stages
still open to view, still rose, in all the simple majesty of its four
mighty arches, as the noblest of canopies over the choir below."
"The eastern ending of the presbytery was," Mr Freeman
proceeds, " rich with the best detail of the thirteenth century, as
can be learnt from the fragments built up in the chapel of the
Vicars' Close, and lying about in the undercroft of the chapter
house, which are in the full Early English style of the west
front. The existing choir aisle walls prove that a procession-
path ran behind the high altar, with most likely a chapel
beyond it."
" The thirteenth century," he concludes, " had done its great
creative work, and had left to future ages only to improve and
develop according to the principles which the thirteenth
century had laid down. That is to say, the thirteenth century
had done for the local church of Wells what it did for England,
what it did for Europe, and for the world."

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH 9
The choir, however, was not so cramped as Mr Freeman
thought, for it included one bay of the nave, as we now know
from a notice of the making of Haselshaw's tomb, which was
dug at the entrance to the choir; and, indeed, the marks where
the screen was fixed are still visible on the piers at this point.
From the top of the screen the great rood looked down the
nave, and on each side of the doorway stood an altar, that on
the north dedicated to Our Lady, that on the south to St.
Andrew. The aisles of the choir were also screened off from
the nave, and outside their gates were two more altars — St.
Saviour's on the north, and St. Edmund's on the south. Thus
the nave, where men were ever coming and going, walking and
talking, and in laxer times buying and selling as well, was quite
shut off from the more sacred places. Yet here, too, were
altars and shrines, and here came the processions on Sundays
and holidays.
Within the choir the chapter said their offices, the dean and
precentor facing east in their returned stalls, and the other
dignitaries in their allotted places, with the junior canons,
vicars, and those in minor orders below them, and the boys
on the lowest forms of all. Just beyond these stalls was the
bishop's throne ; and east of the tower the iiresbytery stood
open, with the tombs of the early bishops, on either side,
under the arches. The rest of the space enclosed within the
screen belonged more especially to the clergy ; the north
transept was probably used as a chapter-house, when the
undercroft was yet unfinished, and its western aisle was used
as the chapter library. The chamber leading to the undercroft
was the vestry, and the stout walls of the octagon, when it was
finished, protected the vestments and treasures of the cathedral.
It is worth while to call to mind the kind of service for
which the church was built, with its aisles and chapels and
screen. The usual Sunday procession started from the north
door of the presbytery, preceded by two thurifers with censers,
went round behind the presbytery, the priest in his cope
asperging the altars on his way, then down the south choir
aisle, and through the south transept into the cloister. In the
cloister-cemetery, the priest, with his ministers, said the prayers
for the dead, and then rejoined the procession in the cloister
Lady Chapel, where the first station vfas made. Thence the
procession returned to the great rood in the naye, and there

lo WELLS CATHEDRAL
made the second station, the bidding-prayer being given out
to the people from the rood-screen, after which it re-entered
the choir. But on special occasions the ritual was increased ;
as, for instance, at the procession of palms on Palm Sunday, or
the Corpus Christi Day procession, which is thus described by
Mr J. D. Chambers * : " The procession, some time before the
mass, should assemble in order at the step of the Choir (i.e. in
the Presbytery), a priest in Albe and silk Cope carrying the
Corpus Christi in a tabernacle or feretory under a canopy of
silk raised over him and it on four staves, borne by four
clerks in Albas and Tunicles, with lighted tapers. It-should go
out of the Choir down the Nave, and out at the West Door of
the Church, round the Church and Cloisters as on Ascension
Day"— /.«. round the outside of the whole church, beginning
with the north side and returning round the east end, and
through the cloister to the west door again, and thus back into
the nave. The colours of the vestments at Wells followed
in the main the custom of the neighbouring diocese of Sarum,
but with some local variations, such as are set down in the
Consuetudinary which Archbishop Laud had copied from the
late thirteenth-century MS. Indigo and white were used on
St. John's Day and on the Dedication Festival; in Advent,
indigo; at Passiontide, red, and on Palm Sunday, "except one
cope of black for the part of Caiaphas " at the singing of the
Passion ; red, too, on Maunday Thursday, but with a banner
of white. Red was also used for Easter, Pentecost, and
throughout the Sundays after Trinity ; while for Virgin Martyrs,
red was mixed with white. This mixture of colours was prob
ably effected by the cantors wearing different coloured copes ;
thus for confessors saffron (croceus) was mixed with green, sicut
hoftestius et magis proprie possuni adaptari fesio ; but St. Julian
and some others had all saffron, while a few, like St. Benedict,
had all indigo. White is comparatively little in evidence, but
it was used at Christmas, and for commemorations of the
Blessed Virgin. Black was used for the commemoration of
the dead.
To this vision of stately pomp, and changing colour, we
must add in our mind's eye the many chapels with their woven
tapestries of flowers and beasts and birds, their rich ornaments
and sacred associations ; the majestic rood upon the screen,
* Divine Worship in England, p. 195.

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH ii
and the rich altars that stood before it ; the almost constant
succession of services that went on behind it, where the canons
(each with his own book and candle) and their vicars sat, and
the pyx hung over the high altar ; the sound of a little bell
from one of the chapels where mass was being said, the
glimmer of a hanging lamp, the gleam of a silver image, the
shrines here and there, with their frequent visitors ; and, as
years went on, the subdued light from the gorgeous painted
windows (that over the high altar glowed then from east to
west without obstructing organ), the frescoes on some of the
walls, the green and red and gold of the later monuments ; and
over all the trail of incense and the sound of prayer.
After Jocelin's death the works came to a standstill, for the
sufficient reason that the chapter was " overburdened with an
intolerable debt," owing to the enormous expense of the
litigation with Bath Abbey over Bishop Roger's election
(p. 153). This, however, was the last attempt of the rival
cathedral of St. Peter ; and the debt, which was at its worst in
1 248 ¦ (the year after Roger's death), was bravely met by a
contribution of a fifth of the income of each prebend, as well
as by gifts and obits ; so that towards the end of William
Bytton's episcopate the debt was nearly cleared, and in 1263
Bytton made over the sequestrations of vacant benefices to the
fabric fund.
In 1248 an earthquake had done much damage, shaking
down the tholus (either the vault, or the stone capping) of the
central tower, as we learn from Matthew Paris {Hist. Angl.
iii. 42). Accordingly, in 1263, preparations were made for
further building; and in 1286 we hear of a chapter meeting,
summoned by Dean Thomas Bytton, whereat the canons bind
themselves to give one-tenth of their prebends for five years,
"to the finishing of the works now a long time begun (jam
diu incepta), and to repair what needed reparation in the old
works." The reparation here mentioned refers in all probability to
the roof and piers of the transepts and eastern part of nave,
damaged by the fall of the tholus. The famous western
capitals of the transepts, with their frequent representations of
th<2 miseries of toothache, must refer to the second William
Bytton, who had died in 1274, and whose tomb became famous
for its dental cures (p. 125). No doubt, the offerings at the

12 WELLS CATHEDRAL
shrine of this local saint helped considerably to swell the funds
for the building operations.
The works " now a long time begun " can hardly be anything
else than the chapter-house undercroft, the outer walls of which
may have been built some forty years before. Professor Willis,
who had access to the document, decided, on architectural
evidence, that the undercroft must have been already com
pleted at this time, and his view may be safely accepted (Arch.
Inst., " Bristol " vol., p. 28). The passage to the undercroft
would seem to be the first result of the chapter's undertaking ;
its ornament is of a more advanced type than that of the
undercroft itself, and one of its carved heads is swollen as by
the toothache, and tied in a handkerchief There can be little
or no doubt that the "finishing" of the old works included
also the building of the chapter-house staircase, and, when
that was finished, the raising of the chapter-house itself (the
nova structura of the old documents) upon the undercroft.
The full Decorated style of the chapter-house is separated by
a considerable interval from the late Early English of the
undercroft, while that of the staircase, which is geometrical
Decorated of a character not very far removed from Early
English, must have been built before the chapter-house itself
was begun.
The self-sacrificing spirit of the chapter was supplemented
by the offerings which flowed in from the growing practice of
endowing altars for requiem services, as well as from the shrine
of St. William Bytton ; and the building activity continued for
the next fifty years till the church had been brought, in all save
its western towers, to its final state of perfection. After the
staircase to the chapter-house had been completed, about the
year 1292, the walls of the chapter-house itself were built,
probably by Bishop William de Marchia (1293-1302) who
seems to have covered it in with a temporary roof.
Dean John de Godelee (i 306-1 333) was the last great
builder of the church of Wells. The power of the bishop in
his own church is already declining, as that of the chapter
rises, and it is the dean now who organises the works. In
1315 the central tower was raised, and by 1321 it was being
roofed in. By 13 19 the chapter-house was finished; Godelee,
with William Joy, the master-mason, had probably worked
out the old drawings and built the windows and vaulted roof

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH 13
Next the Lady Chapel must have been begun, for by 1326 it
was finished. Somewhere about this time the parapet, which
adds so much to the external beauty of the church, was also
made. But the raising of the central tower had, ere this, brought
disaster. In 1321 there was a grant from the clergy of the
Deanery of Taunton in aid of the roofing of the "new
campanile"; in 1338 a convocation was summoned because
the church of Wells was so totaliter confracte et enormiter
deformate that the instant and united action of its members
was required to save it (cf Willis in Som. Proc. 1863). The
adding of the Decorated portion to the tower increased the
weight so much that the four great piers sank into the ground,
dragging the masonry with them and causing rents to appear
at the apex of the arches. The situation was most dangerous :
it was met by the careful repairing of the torn masonry and the
construction of those inverted arches which are so familiar a
feature of the church.
Yet the work proceeded very rapidly under a great bishop,
who for the time eclipsed the rising power of the deans.
Ralph of Shrewsbury (1329-63) carried on the work of Dean
Godelee, and in the early years of his episcopate entirely re
constructed the choir. The scheme seems to have been
contemplated as early as 1325 ; for in that year each dignitary
arranged to pay for his own stall in the refitting of the choir,
because the old stalls had become " ruinous and misshapen."
In any case, it was Ralph who added the three new bays of
the presbytery which are so curiously joined to the old
presbytery of Reginald, and with it form the present eastern
limb of the church. He then constructed the beautiful retro-
choir which connects the presbytery with the Lady Chapel. The
vaulting of the choir and the construction of the great east
window would appear to have been undertaken at a later
period of his episcopate ; for the ceiling is of a more advanced
style than the lower work, and the tracery of the window is
half Perpendicular. When Bishop Ralph died, in 1363, he was
buried in the place of honour in front of the high altar, as the
founder of the choir which he had finished.
The finishing touches were given to the cathedral when
Bishop Harewell (ob. 1386) gave two-thirds of the cost of the
south-western or Harewell Tower, and when the executors of

14 WELLS CATHEDRAL
Bishop Bubwith (ob. 1424) finished the companion tower on
the north-west.
The other efforts of the fourteenth and fifteenth century
builders were given to those subordinate buildings which are
the peculiar glory of Wells. Even so magnificent a prelate
as Beckington did nothing to the actual fabric of the
Cathedral (unless his tomb be so considered), for the simple
reason that there was really nothing for him to do. Ralph of
Shrewsbury had, besides his work in the church, finished the
palace (which Jocelin had begun and Burnell had enriched with
the hall and chapel) by the moat, walls, and gate-house. He
had also begun the Vicars' Close, of which the chapel was
built by Bubwith, but the executors of Beckington recast it in
its present form. After Beckington had employed his energies
in erecting the beautiful gateways with which his name is
always associated. Dean Gunthorpe (ob. 1498) built the
deanery. The following interesting eulogy of Bishop Beckington and
his church was written in the form of a Latin dialogue by
Chaundler, who was Chancellor of Wells in 1454: —
" You might more properly call it a city than a town, as you
would yourself understand more clearly than day if you could
behold all its intrinsic splendour and beauty. For that most
lovely church which we see at a distance, dedicated to the
most blessed Apostle of the Almighty God, St. Andrew,
contains the episcopal chair of the worthy Bishop. Adjoining
it is the vast palace, adorned with wonderful splendour, girt on
all sides by flowing waters, crowned by a delectable succession
of walls and turrets, in which the most worthy and learned
Bishop Thomas, the first of that name, bears rule. He has
indeed at his own proper pains and charges conferred such a
splendour on this city, as well by strongly fortifying the church
with gates and towers and walls, as by constructing on the
grandest scale the palace in which he resides and the other
surrounding buildings, that he deserves to be called, not the
founder merely, but rather the splendour and ornament of the
church." The Reformation period left the cathedral cold and barren
within, but interfered little with its fabric ; the only serious
piece of destruction (p. 57) being that of the magnificent
Lady Chapel by the Cloister, in 1552, by Sir John Gates, "a

•i|., 5...,ili, P,ni|.,,cVylS Wcii,„{,s C.A-.a

:-' ^ '-<

ItlljM' ,\^
mil- ^

THE CATHEDRAL. (From a Seventeenth-Century Print.)

i6 WELLS CATHEDRAL
greate puritan, Episcopacie's common Enemy.'' In other
respects it was what Freeman calls a period of systematic
picking and stealing ; as witness this passage from Nathaniel
Chyles : — " The Great Duke of Somersett, Unkle to Edward
the Sixt (whose title proved very fatall to this place and
Bishopwrick) was not only contented to get most of the man-
nours Lands and possessions belonging to this Bishopwrick
settled upon him and his posteritie, but at last even the
palace itselfe also." But the palace and some of the property
were recovered after Somerset's execution.
The bishop's palace suffered the ruin of Burnell's magni
ficent hall through the prevalent lust for gain. Sir John
Harrington writes in terms of pardonable indignation : — " I
speak now only of the spoil made under this Bishop [Barlow] ;
scarce were five years past after Bath's ruins, but as fast went
the axes and hammers to work at Wells. The goodly hall
covered with lead . . . was uncovered, and now this roof
reaches to the sky. The Chapel of Our Lady, late repaired by
Stilliiigton, a place of reverence and antiquity, was likewise
defaced, and such was their thirst after lead (I would they had
drunk it scalding) that they took the dead bodies of bishops
out of their leaden coffins, and cast abroad the carcases scarce
thoroughly putrified."
During the Commonwealth the choir was closed, and Dr
Cornelius Burges, who was appointed "Preacher" at the
cathedral, bought the bishop's palace and deanery for his
private property. He, of course, despoiled the palace, "pull
ing off not only the Lead thereoff," says Chyles,* " but taking
away also the Timber, and making what money he could of
them, and what remained unsold he, removed to the Deanery
improving that out of the Ruins af the palace, leaving only
bare Walls." At the Restoration Burges was ejected, after a
good deal of Htigation, and Bishop Piers returned to the ruins
of his palace. Burges' sermons had never been popular with
the people of Wells, who annoyed him by walking up and down
the cloisters "all sermon time." When the trial for his eject
ment came on he publisHed his " Case," in which he justified
his buying Church lands by alleging that he had lent the State
^3490, and, having a wife and ten children to provide for, he
took such land, etc. as the only means of repayment. Five of
* Book ii. c. 2.

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH 17
the canons' houses were also obtained from Cromwell's Com
missioners by the Corporation of Wells, one or two of which
were pulled down and sold for old stone.
At the Restoration, the canons were at great expense to
restore the church from the ruinous condition into which it
had fallen in Puritan times, and they were liberally helped
in their extremity by the clergy and laity of the diocese.
Says Chyles (c. 1680): "Since his Majestie's and Churche's
happy and blessed Restoration, what betweene the Bishopp,
the Deane, and Deane and Chapter, our Church and Quire
is once more in a beautifull and comely habitt (which God
continue) such as neither the Church of Rome has reason to
upbraid us with a slovenly or clownish Service, nor the Puritan
and Nonconformist with a gaudy or Superstitious. The good
old Bishopp [W. Piers], who weather'd out that Storme, and
was restored to what was his Owne, gave those silk Hangings
which beautifie the Altar within the Railes." Dean Creyghton
gave the glass in the west window, the organ and the brass
lectern, and Dr Busby, who was treasurer of Wells as well
as head-master of Westminster, gave the silver-gilt alms dish
and restored the library, lengthening it by the addition of the
southern part. *
Chyles tells us, too, that there was morning and evening
prayer in the "Vicars' Chapell in Close Hall," at six, forenoon
and afternoon, in winter, and seven in summer, in addition to
the. cathedral services at the " canonical howers." Before his
time there had been only a morning sermon on Sundays, and,
in the afternoon, "the whole Cathedrall" had been in the
habit of going to St. Cuthbert's, returning with the mayor and
his brethren for the cathedral prayers at four ; " but since his
Majesty's Restoracion one likewise in the Afternoones here is
preached by the said prebends in theire turns. Soe that here
the Sermonizing people may have their Bellyfull of preaching
and forbeare crying out. They are starved for want of the Word
and calling our c\&:gy Dumb Doggs."
This time of peace did not last long, for in 1685 the whole
of Somerset was up in Monmouth's rebellion. The duke's
followers came to Wells, turned the cathedral into a stable, tore
the lead off the roof for bullets, pulled down several of the
statues, broached a barrel of beer on the high altar, and
would have destroyed the altar itself, had not Lord Grey,

i8 WELLS CATHEDRAL
one of their leaders, defended it with his sword. Dr Conan
Doyle's description of the scene in his novel, Micah Clarke
(p. 292), is so vivid that it is well worth referring to.
The long and heavy peace which followed was marked by
the gradual pewing up of the ' choir and presbytery, and the
intrusion of pretentious monuments. Then, in our own times,
came the revival, bringing evil as well as good in its train. In
1842 the restoration of the nave, transepts, and Lady Chapel
was commenced at the instance of Dean Goodenough, by Mr
Benjamin Ferrey. He removed the thick layers of whitewash
which had been ingeniously applied to conceal the sculpture ;
and the long rows of marble tablets which had disfigured the
aisles were shifted to the cloisters, whence, it may be hoped,
they will one day make a further journey towards oblivion.
The restoration of the choir by Mr Salvin, which lasted from
1848 to 1854, was unfortunately of a less blameless character.
It was the period of the Great Exhibition, when art reached the
lowest depths to which it has sunk in the history of the world.
We need not dwell upon the result; few restorations are
more marked with the complacent ignorance of that strange
time. The old pews and galleries in the choir, which had
hidden the very capitals of the piers, were indeed removed,
but with them the medieval stalls were destroyed and replaced
by work of indescribable imbecility. No real improvement in
the choir of Wells is now possible till every trace of Dean
Jenkyns' restoration is swept away ; but, alas ! what he
destroyed can never be recovered.
In 1868 the report of Mr Ferrey* upon the west front was
presented, and shortly afterwards the work of repair was begun
under his direction. The report showed how extensive was the
decay, and how great the danger of complete ruin unless steps
were taken to protect the old work ; and the work of repair was
carried out with care and reverence ; though even here irrepar
able harm was done by the substitution of the modern " slate
pencils " for the old blue lias shafts. Since then, many small
matters have been attended to with varying success. The
Lady Chapel has been decently furnished and the east end
slightly improved. Much still remains to be done ; but the
best motto at the present day is festina lente, and the safest
rule is to be progressive in all enrichment by removable
* Inst. Arch. 1870.

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH 19
furniture, and conservative, very conservative, in all structural
alteration. If the hand of the restorer can now be stayed, the
words will still be true of Wells, which M. Huysmans used of

Dawkes ir- Partridge, Plwto.\
SOUTH AISLE OF NAVE. (See p. 83.
another church : — Ces sikles s'etaient reunis pour apporter aux
pieds du Christ Peffort surhumain de leur art, et les dons de
chacun etaient visibles encore.

CHAPTER II
THE EXTERIOR
"In England," wrote Mr J. H. Parker, in his Glossary,
"Wells affords the most perfect example of a cathedral with
all its parts and appurtenances. It was," he continues, after
an enumeration of the parts of the church, " sf, cathedral
proper, and independent of any monastic founda^jpn, but
with a separate house for each of its officers, either in the
Close or in the Liberty adjoining to it. , The bishop's palace
was enclosed by a separate moat and fortified, being on the
south side of the cloister, from which it is separated by the
moat ; the houses for the dean and for the archdeacon are
on the . north side of the Close, with some of the canons'
houses ; the organist's house is at the west end, adjoining to
the singing-school and the cloister ; the precentor's house
is at the east end, near the Lady Chapel. The vicars-choral
have a close of their own adjoining to the north-east corner
of the canons' close, with a bridge across through the gate
house into the north transept ; they were a collegiate body,
with their own chapel, library, and hall." One need only
add that all these sentences can still, with one exception,
be read in the present tense to show that Wells possesses a
beauty and interest which gives it an unique place among
cathedral foundations. There is no other cathedral city in
which so many of the old ecclesiastical buildings remain,
or on which the modern world has made so little impression.
The church itself, in Fergusson's opinion perhaps the most
beautiful, though one of the smallest in England, is but
one part of a "group of buildings, which," wrote Professor
Freeman, " as far as I know, has no rival, either in our own
island or beyond the sea." The little city to which these
buildings belong is itself worthy of them, almost a part of
them, so quiet and venerable is it, so picturesque in its
lovely setting of green hills.

THE EXTERIOR 21
Were size the main distinction of a church, Wells would
sink comfortably into the second class; even in some of its
best features it has many rivals, but the peculiar charm and
glory of Wells lies (to quote again from Freeman's History)
"in the union and harmonious grouping of all. The church
does not stand alone ; it is neither crowded by incongruous
buildings, nor yet isolated from those buildings which are
its natural and necessary complement. Palace, cloister. Lady
Chapel, choir, chapter-house, all join to form one indivisible
whole. The series goes on uninterruptedly along that unique
bridge, which, by a marvel of ingenuity, connects the church
itself with the most perfect of buildings of its own class,
the matchless vicars' close. Scattered around we see here
and there an ancient house, its gable, its windows, or its
turret, falling in with the style and group of greater buildings,
and bearing its part in producing the general harmony of all."
Thus, in the first place, the group of buildings must be
looked at as a whole from the north, from the east, from
the south-east ; then the superb, unrivalled picture from the
rising ground on the Shepton Mallet road,* outside the city,
must be seen, and, when this little journey has been made,
the most hurried visitor must find time at least to peep into
the vicars' close, and walk round the moat of the palace.
After some such general impression has been gained, the
study of the exterior of the church will naturally begin with
that part which is a peculiar distinction of Wells Cathedral —
the west front.
The West Front of Wells has been universally admired.
Long ago, old Fuller wrote — "The west front of Wells is
a masterpiece of art indeed, made of imagery in just propor
tion, so that we may call them vera et spirantia signa. Eng
land affordeth not the like." This verdict is but repeated
by modern writers ; the front is " quite unrivalled," says
Fergusson, and comparable only to Rheims and Chartres.
Mr Hughes, in Traill's Social England, goes farther and says f
that "nothing fit to rank with it was then being done in
Northern Europe — for the monumental porches of France,
* The road should be followed for about a quarter of a mile out of the
town ; at this point a path leads over a stile and through a coppice to the
best point of view.
t Vol. i. 421.

WELLS CATHEDRAL

formerly supposed to be contemporary, are now recognised
as of a later date."
But there has been a discordant note in the general chorus
of praise. Professor Freeman, whose admiration for nearly
everything in Wells was so intense, could find little to praise
in the west front of
^V\t ' the cathedral.* "It is
%\* l^ilb, ' doubtless," he wrote,
" the finest display of
sculpture in England ;
but it is thoroughly
bad as a piece of archi
tecture. I am always
glad when I get round
the corner, and can
rest my eye on the
massive and simple
majesty of the nave
and transepts. The
west front is bad be
cause it is a sham —
because it is not the
real ending of the nave
and aisles, but a mere
mask, devised, in order
to gain greater room
for the display of
statues  The
front is not the natural
finish of the nave and
, aisles ; it is a blank
wall built up in a shape
which is not the shape
which their endings
would naturally assume. It is therefore a sham ; it is
a sin against the first law of architectural design, the law
that enrichment should be sought in ornamenting the con
struction . . . not in building up anything simply for the
sake of effect." He then proceeds to criticise the way in which
the windows and doorways " are stowed away as they best may
* History of the Cathedral, 125.

West Front. Bishop Aethelhelm (103).
Drawn by H. V. Clifford.

Dawkes &" Partridge, Photo.]

THE WEST FRONT.

THE EXTERIOR 25
be," as if they were felt to be mere interruptions to the lines of
sculpture. This latter objection to the doorways had often been made
before, only that the " rabbit-holes on a mountain side " of
earlier critics became " mouse-holes " with Mr Freeman. Mr
E. W. Godwin, in a lecture in 1862, had also found fault with
the crowding in of the niches over the central doorway, which
he declared to be in the highest degree clumsy ; with the bald
appearance given by the shallowness of the reveals in the prin
cipal windows ; and with the way in which " the solid work of
the base suddenly crops up at the very summit of the two
central buttresses, not altogether unlike the dog -kennel of
modern Gothic."
Of these criticisms the most serious is Mr Freeman's general
charge of unreality. But why should not a stone screen be
erected for the display of statuary before the west end of a
church, just as lawfully as behind the high altar ? And, if
a screen may be allowed as an end in itself, standing simply
as a thing of beauty to glorify a building of which it is not
a structural part, then the front of Wells may stand, like
the reredos of Winchester, as the noblest example of its kind.
It has no need to simulate lofty aisles which do not exist,
for it covers, not the aisles, but the faces of the great towers
themselves ; and, as a consequence, the portion of really blank
wall which stretches from them to the central gable is so
small as to be more than justified by the cohesion it gives to
the whole. The whole effect is singularly broad, but so is
the space it covers within ; for this breadth is legitimately
attained by the happy device of planting the western towers
beyond the aisles.
The massive front of Wells stands, therefore, on its own
merits as a west front, and not merely a west end — a great
stone screen that, so far from pretending to be a regular
termination of the nave and aisles, is actually carried, in all its
sculptured magnificence, round the sides of the two towers
upon which it so frankly depends. It is a screen built at a
period different from, and, we may now safely assume, later
than, that of the nave, and built for the exhibition of a noble
legend in stone, which has ever since been the glory of a
county famed for its splendid churches.
Taking it then for what it is, and remembering that the

26 WELLS CATHEDRAL
lower tiers were once filled with statuary, can we regret that
the doorways themselves were subordinated to the one grand
design of accommodating this great multitude of silent teachers ?
The great doorways of French churches are magnificent in
themselves, but that is surely no reason why we should make it
an axiom that a front cannot be fine unless it have a great
doorway. Striking as the effect of these foreign entrances may
be, there is no structural reason why a door should be of an
unwieldy size out of all proportion to the stature of the people
who use it, so that a smaller door has to be cut for ordinary
use out of the real door. It certainly, as even at Amiens,
limits the sculptor's opportunities ; and in a country like
England, where doors can only be kept open for a few weeks
in the year, great doorways would be as inappropriate as closed
doors are forbidding. As a matter of fact, the usual entrance
to Wells Cathedal in Jocelin's time was not from the west, but
through the cloister and the south porch. And the central
entrance of the west was made impressive, not by its size, but
by the exquisite nature of its carving, and the blue and scarlet
and gold with which it was coloured. It was not insignificant
then. It had the prominence of a jewel. Moreover, in French
churches, where the exterior is sacrificed to the internal effect,
there is some wisdom in concentrating attention upon the
doorway. But in English churches — and in Wells, perhaps,
more than any other English church — the exteriors are perfect
in themselves, and the visitor need not be tempted to hurry to
their portals. After all, if the rabbit-holes on a mountain-side
looked as large as quarries, the mountain would not look like
a mountain. There are, moreover, three faults in the front as it now stands
which cannot be attributed to its maker. In the first place, it
is undoubtedly a little formal, a little square, and this defect
is particularly marked in the photographs which one sees
everywhere. Unfortunately this picture, which is too small
to show the detail, gives no idea whatever of the general
external effect of the ' church. It gives the impression that
Wells Cathedral is a glorified wall, because the photograph
cannot show the other parts upon which the front depends.
The architect, no doubt, intended the towers to be carried
higher or surmounted with spires, and though no trace of any
stone erection has been found on the tops of the present towers,

THE EXTERIOR 27
they may once have been crowned with wooden spires covered
with lead or shingle. One need hardly say how vast a differ
ence such lofty towers as exist at Laon Cathedral, or spires like
those of Lichfield, would make in the effect of the front.
They would also account for the great size of the buttresses,
which seem to have been built with a view to sustaining a great
weight. A disagreeable impression is also caused by the row of
hip-knobs along the coping of the central gable, . and the
pinnacle in their midst. This collection of curiosities was
probably added in the seventeenth century, and the pinnacle
may have been taken from one of the denuded buttresses of
the Lady Chapel to replace the gable cross which must have
originally stood here : at all events it is a later addition, as was
proved by an examination of the masonry. It would be an
act of justice to the memory of Jocelin if these trivial ex
crescences were removed.
Perhaps one is even more distressed on first seeing the
front by a third fault — the weak and stringy effect of the long,
thin, dark, marble shafts. For this the restorer, Mr Benjamin
Ferrey, must bear the blame. He complained with justice that
the original blue lias shafts, when they were decayed, had
been replaced by the ordinary Doulting stone.* But, un
happily, he did not go back to the original material, but
fitted the whole front with a complete set of shafts of Kilkenny
marble, which is at once dark and cold. They absolutely
refuse to blend with the old, warm, grey stone, and stand out,
stark and stiff, like an array of gigantic slate pencils. Mr
Ferrey was possessed with the idea that the blue lias shafts
(having only lasted for a paltry half-dozen centuries) were not
durable enough for the work. He therefore used this marble,
which, doubtless, will stand in increased obtrusiveness when
every stone of the cathedral has decayed. He further was
impressed with the strange notion that the hideous Kilkenny
marble is of the same colour as the exquisitely delicate grey
* The Doulting stone, of which the cathedral is built, comes from the St.
Andrew's quarry at the little village of Doulting, where Bishop Ealdhelm
died. It is inferior oolite, and very like Bath stone, which is the greater
oolite. The exterior shafts were blue lias, and those within either blue
lias or Purbeck marble, though there are one or two shafts of red Draycot
stone in the western responds of the nave.

28

WELLS CATHEDRAL

of the blue lias. The result is a sad warning to all restorers
not to be more clever than the original architect.
Let us, then, try to imagine the west front with its empty
lowest tier filled with graceful figures, its gable in its first
simplicity and surmounted by a cross, its towers of Early
English form crowned with lofty spires, its delicate shafts of
their original material, and its ranges of figures " all gorgeous
in their freshly-painted hues of blue and scarlet and purple

ORNAMENTS IN THE WEST FRONT.

and gold." Then we shall have some idea of the front of
Wells as Jocelin meant it to be and to remain.
As for the colour, its effect can be gathered from the
traces which survive. There is ultramarine, gold, and scarlet
in the tympanum of the central doorway, where there are also
the marks of metal fitttings. Ferrey found a deep maroon
colour on the figures of the Apostles, and a dark colour painted
with stars in the Resurrection tier. One of the chief glories of
the front is the faithful care which is given throughout to the
smaller features. The mouldings (a succession of rounds and

THE EXTERIOR

29

hollows) are most bold and effective ; the carving of the
foliage in caps and canopies, tympana, pedestals, and ter
minals is singulaily beautiful and free. This impression
is deepened by a minute examination ; indeed, it is almost
a matter of regret that some of the finest work is at such
a height as to be almost impossible to see ; for in all the
earlier work at Wells the- Lamp of Sacrifice burns brightly.
Mr Ferry pointed out an instance, which may be given here,
of the care with which minor matters were thought out : — In
order that the lowest tier might not look weak and yet might
provide a sufficient shadow for the statues, the backs of the

ORNAMENTS IN THE WEST FRONT.

niches are set at a slightly recessed angle in the centre,
and thus an effect of strength is given to the angular jambs.
Indeed, there may be differences of opinion as to the general
design of the west front, but there can be none as to the
supreme excellence of its detail. It is beyond doubt the most
rich example of Early English work to be found anywhere.
The crown of its glories, the justification of its form, did it need
justification, are the frail statues which line it, tier upon tier.
Vertically the west front is divided into three main parts —
the centre, containing the three lancet windows of the naye
and the main doorway, is surmounted by a gable receding in
stages with a pinnacle at either angle; and the two lateral
towers, the lower portion of which form one continuous screen

30 WELLS CATHEDRAL
with the centre, broken only by the boldly projecting buttresses,
of which each division possesses two. Horizontally the front
divides itself naturally into four parts — the plain base, which is
high enough to contain the full height of the small north and
south doorways. One of the stones in this division, about the
level of the eye, and near the middle, which has evidently been
moved from some other place, bears the inscription, Pur lalme
Johan de Putenie priez et trieze jurs de . . . Next is an arcade
of niches interspersed with windows, the space above being
pierced by quatrefoils. The third division contains the three
lancet windows, the forms of which are repeated on the north
and south, breaking the line of the two historical tiers of
niches which, with the Resurrection tier, adorn this main
division of the front. A bold string course marks it off firmly
and decisively from the fourth and upper division, in which
the three parts of the front become separate, the towers at
each side and the stepped gable, flanked by two graceful Early
English pinnacles, in the middle. The statuary is mainly con
fined to the arcading of the second division, to the buttresses
of the third, with its continuous cornice of the Resurrection
tier, and to the gable front of the fourth ; but the amount of it is
largely increased by the fact that the work is carried round
three sides of the north-western tower, which only touches the
church on one side. The niches on the sides of the south
western tower are almost empty.
The Statuary. — The statuary is not only the finest collec
tion of medieval sculpture to be found in England; but,
separately, the figures are with few exceptions finer than any
others in this country, while some of them are almost as beautiful
as the greatest masterpieces in Italy or France. It is strange
that here, at the outset of the Gothic period, the chief charac
teristics of the old Greek spirit should be so apparent, the
same restraint, the same simplicity, the same exquisite ap
preciation of light and flowing drapery : in other things there is
difference enough, the form is less perfect, the action is less
free, though there is a deeper sentiment and a higher power of
spiritual expression ; but in the essentials of sublime statuary
there is a singular agreement.
And, strange though it seems, it may well be that in these
statues one must look for the first signs of the influence of the
Renaissance in England. Romanesque work has but just died

THE EXTERIOR

31

out, and already the old spirit, destined in time to supplant
the architecture which sprung from it, is at work again. While
the statues were being cut at Wells, Niccola Pisano was
reviving sculpture in Italy under the inspiration of classical
examples ; and there can be little doubt
but that it was Italian sculptors who
produced the statuary at Wells. Some
of the figures on the northern part
of the front have been found to be
marked with Arabic numerals (Somerset
Proceedings 1888, i. 57, 62), and
these numerals, which did not become
common in England till the sixteenth
century, were used in Italy long before,
having been introduced by Bonacci of
Pisa (a fellow-citizen of Niccola) in
1202. That they are found here before
the middle of the century is a fairly
conclusive proof that the workers were
Italians, and very likely from Pisa itself.
Jocelin, indeed, was English, but he
had been in exile from 1208 to 1213,
when he had ample opportunity of
studying the work of the Italian artists.
Pleasant as it would be to our national
pride, we can hardly believe that Eng
lishmen produced what sems to be the
earliest example of such magnificent
and varied sculpture in north-western
Europe. At Jocelin's death, in 1242,
when the work had been going on for
some thirty years, Niccola Pisano was west^Front
in his prime, Cimabue was two yeaa-s
old, and forty years had yet to elapse before the rival sculpture
of Amiens Cathedral was executed.
Mr Ruskin, whose admiration of the work at Amiens is
so intense, has given almost as high praise to the sculpture
at Wells, and has presented sets of photographs of the
statuary to various art schools. The verdict of enthusiastic
approval is, in fact, unanimous. Flaxman, to his credit, in
spite of his classicalism, was one of the first to draw attention

Christina (185).
Drawn by H. P. Clifford.

32 WELLS CATHEDRAL
to the work. Whoever was the general designer of the whole
arrangement, he deserves as great praise as the sculptors them
selves. There must have been several sculptors, both because
no one man could have carved three hundred and fifty
subjects (of which one huhdred and fifty-two are life-size or
colossal), and because a certain number of the figures in the
fourth and fifth tiers are of obviously inferior design. But
one master-mind must have conceived and directed the work.
The height and lightness which is given to the gable by the
tall row of the Apostles, the solemn prominence of the figure
of our Lord above, the rich cornice-like effect of the small
Resurrection tier, the difference in height between the fourth
and fifth tiers, the concentration of the three lower tiers, the
breadth which the seated figures give to the face of the
buttresses, the arrangement of the statues and groups round
the buttresses, which makes it impossible for them all to be
seen at once, all show that one mind was busy, carefully
subordinating the parts to the whole.
It may well have been Jocelin himself who planned the
subject-matter of the statuary with such admirable breadth
and balance of mind. It is easy to produce sermons in
stones, easy to sermonise in very many ways ; but Jocelin did
not preach. He just tried to embody the Christian spirit
at work in the world : God made manifest in man, the great
truth of the Incarnation ; and this he did in what we should
call the most modern manner, though in truth it is medieval
as well as modern. He did not conceive of Christianity as
confined within the covers of the Bible, but he took all
history, as he knew it, the patient education of man in the
Old Testament, the fulfilment of man's aspirations and God's
purpose in the New, from the birth of our Lord to the
founding of the Church, and the continuation of this church
up to his own time, with especial regard to the heroes, saints
and rulers of the Church of England. He made a "kalendar
for unlearned men," which is both a Biblia Pauperum and
Annates Angliae, because the annals of England were to him
a new Bible. "Slowly the Bible of the race is writ," a
modern writer has said, " each age, each kindred, adds a word
to it." That was the spirit of Jocehn's design; only that,
through the pomp of mighty kings and fair women and
honoured bishops, he looked to the naked truth of the judg-

THE EXTERIOR 33
ment time, when mitres and crowns would remain but as
signs of an awful responsibility, and the divine justice, so
fried, so obscured on earth, would be vindicated before the
ang.els who are quick to do God's will, and the twelve plain
men who turned the mighty currents of the world. Such was
the spirit of a man who lived in the days of St. Francis and
St. Louis, Stephen Langton and Roger Bacon.
Before commencing a detailed description of the statuary,
one must refer to Professor Cockerell, R.A., whose enthusiastic
love of the work led him to construct a theory which he
published in 1851, as an Iconography of the West Front.
There can be little doubt that he was right in his general
idea; there can be equally little doubt that he was wrong
in nearly every application of it. Everyone now, for instance,
takes it for granted that the south side of the front is mainly
" spiritual," devoted to ecclesiastics, while the north is
" temporal " ; and that the whole of the fourth and fifth tiers
do represent certain leading historical figures. But when we
read Cockerell's reasons for identifying these figures we recoil
in dismay. His knowledge of history is superficial, of costume
he knows practically nothing ; his drawings are as inaccurate
as his imagination is fertile, and he states as obvious facts the
wildest conjectures. Further reference will be found to his
book in eur description of the fourth and fifth tiers. It was
at least an honest labour of love, and Cockerell deserves the
honour, as he had to endure the disadvantages, of being the
first in the field.
The central doorway may be taken before the lowest
tier. Its soffit contains an evident addition, as if the architect
felt that it needed emphasising by some enrichment. In the
first of its four deeply-wrought mouldings a series of niches,
five on each side, with small delicately - carved figures, has
been inserted, evidently after the arch was made ; they are
cut from a different stone (white lias), and are skilfully fitted
and grooved into the back of the large sunk moulding. They
add considerably to the effect of the arch, although all the
heads of the figures have been destroyed. It is characteristic
of Cockerell's random method of conjecture, that he declared
these figures to be representations of the Ten Commandments.
I. The tympanum under the arch and above the double opening of the
doorway contains a quatrefoil, in which is a noble sculpture of the Madonna
C

34 WELLS CATHEDRAL
and Child. The head of the Mother and the upper half of the Child are
gone, but the drapery that remains is of quite perfect grace and dignity.
A serpent is under the feet of the Madonna, who is sitting on a throne ;
angels censing are on either side without the quatrefoil. A gotjd deal
of the old colour which once gave this central group a peculiar brilliancy
can still be traced on this protected sculpture ; the background was ultra
marine, the mouldings red and gold. The figures were also gilded in
part, and there are marks on the wall to show that a metal nimbus was
once attached to it.
i:. In a canopy above the arch is another sculpture of equal beauty,
though, owing to its more exposed position, the treatment is a little
broader. It represents the coronation of Our Lady ; both the heads and
all the hands are gone. The two figures are both seated on one long
bench, and our Lord leans forward to place the crown upon his Mother's
head.
THE TIERS.
In order to avoid any possible mistake I have taken each tier from
right to left, specifying the gaps, windows, and buttresses, to facilitate
identification, and commencing with the lowest tier. I have also num
bered the figures afresh, because of the confusion which has hitherto
caused great waste of time to every one who has attempted to identify
them. Cockerell's numbers are the only ones that are at all accurate
(and he omits the two figures on the extreme south of the fourth and fifth
tiers) ; but, as he recommenced his enumeration with each series, they are
not much use for purposes of identification. There are mistakes and
omissions in the enumeration of the photographs, there are mistakes in the
album in the cathedral library, the photographs in the South Kensington
Museum are hopelessly muddled, and even the descriptions of the restorer,
Mr Ferrey, are so arranged that it takes days to identify them, while some
of them elude one's efforts altogether. I have, therefore, numbered the
statues and groups in a continuous order from bottom to top, so that com
parison with photographs will in the future be easy. In the case of work
most of which can only be seeii from a distance, the study of photographs is
absolutely necessary for a full appreciation of their beauty, more especially
as in very many cases the photographs reveal the form which the accidents
of discoloration have partly concealed. Mr Phillips of lo Market Place
has an almost complete set of admirable photographs, which he was enabled
to take when the scaffolding was up for the restoration of 1S70-73 : it is
these which Mr Ruskin has so much admired.
As there are so many statues, some of inferior interest and beauty, I
have ventured to put an asterisk (*) to those which I think no one should
fail to see ; and, in almost every case, I have but echoed the general
verdict. The Lovrest Tier. — This tier contains sixty-two niches, forty-three of
which are empty, so fatally convenient has their position been for the
iconoclast. Of those which remain nearly all are on the north side of the
tower, so that at first sight the tier seems to be quite empty. The loss
here has been the greater because the figures were of the finest kind, as
well as the most easily seen : those remaining are certainly of the most

THE EXTERIOR

35

exquisite loveliness. Cockerell's theory that this tier represents the heralds
of the gospel, prophets and missionaries, has nothing to support it.
It seems to me not unlikely that the tier was devoted to some of the most
popular saints in the calendar ; the position, so near the passer-by, would
have suited this arrangement, and the front must have been singularly
deficient in saints if it were otherwise. The figures which remain, a group
of deacons, a group of bearded figures holding books, and of women bearing
religious attributes, might well stand for saints.

3. South Tower. Male figure,
much decayed, held by metal
clamps.
4. Male figure, much decayed, held
by metal clamps.
Rest of figures missing along west
fi'ont up to —
5. North Tower. Male figure,
much decayed, holds book.
6. A similar figure.
hlis^ing.
7. North Buttress. Male figure,
which held some drapery in
front.
8. North Buttress. Male figure,
holding a vessel in right hand
covered with a cloth, the end
of which was in left hand.
[Cockerell calls this St. Augus
tine, erroneously supposing this
cloth to be the pallium.]
9. Beautiful female figure,* drapery
resembling a chasuble ; hands
gone.
10. Female figure with flowing hair;
hands gone.
II. Female figure, wimple round
head, in left hand holds a.
vessel, right hand is on the
edge of the vessel, the fingers
dipping in.
12. Female figure,* hood over head,
holds in right hand the foot of
a chalice, and with her left the
fold of her dress in front.
13. Tall male figure, bearded,
holding closed book ; in good
preservation.

14. Male figure, bearded ; hands
gone.
15. Buttress. Male figure, bearded,
with flowing hair ; hands
gone.
16. Buttress. Male figure, bearded,
holdingopen book in left hand;
upper part moulding away.
17. Deacon*indalmatic, alb, amice,
holding open book in left
hand, right hand gone; drapery
is wonderfully fine. (This
and the remaining figures are
tonsured and shaven. )
iS. Deacon,* a beautiful figure,
(apparently in dalmatic), amice;
left hand gone.
19. Deacon, in girded alb, ends of
girdle hanging down, wears
the folded chasuble (very rare
in art) over left shoulder,
maniple ; holds book with
both hands.
Missing.
20. Buttress. Deacon, in girded
alb, amice, stole over left
shoulder, book in left hand.
Besides ends of girdle, end of
a stole is visible on left side,
as if a crossed stole had first
been carved and this end for
gotten.
21. Buttress. Deacon,'' stole worn
over left shoulder, maniple,
but no amice and no girdle ;
wears instead of alb a surplice
with full sleeves — an unusual
combination.

Second Tier. — The next tier (22-53) consists of thirty-two quatrefoils,
some of which are now empty. The rest contain half-length figures of
angels, holding crowns, mitres, scrolls, or drapery in their hands.

36

WELLS CATHEDRAL

Third Tier. — This, which we may call the Bible Tier, consists of forty-
eight quatrefoils, ranged close above the quatrefoils of the second tier, and
broken in the centre by the larger sculpture of the Coronation of the
Virgin (2). The subjects are all from the Bible, those on the south from
the Old Testament, dealing with the first things, while those on the north
and on the north and east sides of the northern tower are from the New
Testament, and represent the life and mission of our Lord. The iconoclasts
seem to have concentrated their attention on those earlier New Testament
groups, which would contain the figure of our Lady, and they have made
the Crucifixion almost unrecognisable. The figures are about two feet
high.

Empty.
54. The Death of Jacob.
55. Isaac blessing Jacob, who leans
over him.
56. Meeting of Isaac and Rebecca,
probably.
57. Noah sacrificing on Ararat.
Very fine.
58. The Ark. A curious structure,
raised pyramidally in four
tiers, with open arcades, in
which birds and beasts are
seen. Below is the Flood.
59. Noah building the Ark.* He
is in workman's dress, and
wears a cap ; he is working at
a bench, beneath which are
his tools. Behind is the ark,
and an " Early English " tree.
60. God decreeing the Deluge.*
In great wrath Jehovah ap
proaches a man who sits
pensively on a hill-side : from
behind the man's head springs
a demon. The figure of
Jehovah is admirably ex
pressed.
Empty.
61. Abraliam about to sacrifice
Isaac, who is bound on a
bundle of wood. Cockerell
called this the Sacrifice of
Cain, which certainly suits its
position better.
62. Adam delves and Eve spins.
Fine.
Empty.
63. Jehovah in the Garden. A
draped figure, addressing two
figures naked and ashamed.

64. The Temptation. The serpent's
body is coiled round the tree
near Adam, and his head
hovers above with an apple in
the mouth. Adam is already
eating the fruit.
65. God placing Adam and Eve in
the Garden of Eden.
66. The Creation of Eve.
67. The Creation of Adam. The
figure of the Almighty in each
of these three is magnificent,
especially in the last.
Empty.
Over central doorway. 2. Coron
ation of the Virgin (p. 34).
Here follow eighteen New Testa
ment subjects.
68. St. John the Evangelist*;
he is winged. A book rests
on the back of an eagle. The
idea of inspiration could not
be more finely expressed.
Empty. (Perhaps the Annuncia
tion was here. )
Empty. (Perhaps the Visita
tion.)
69. The Nativity. Mutilated.
Empty. Empty.
Empty.
Empty. Empty.
Empty.
70. Christ among the Doctors :
the Holy Child is a very
small figure on a pedestal.
A most expressive group.
71. St. John Baptist, clothed in
camels' hair, in the wilder-

THE EXTERIOR

37

ness. (An angel appearing
from the clouds, broken off
since 1862. The fragment is
now in No. 72).
72. Figures in critical attitudes.
Perhaps the Sermon on the
Mount.
Empty.
73. Christ in the Wilderness, prob
ably.
74. Figures in intent attitudes.
Perhaps the Mission of the
Apostles.
75. Five figures seated at a table.
Perhaps the Anointing of
Christ's feet.
76. Figure on a Mount surrounded
by many figures. Perhaps the
Feeding of the Five.Thousand.
North side of Tower.
77. Christ, sitting, with other
"figures. Perhaps the Feeding
of the Four Thousand.
78. The Transfiguration.* A fine
composition, two of the
Apostles crouching in the
foreground.
79. The Entry into Jerusalem.
Under the city gate two men
strew clothes and branches :

80.

ii.

from the walls and tower
many people are looking.
The Betrayal. Chief priest
with mitred head - dress in
centre : winged devil holds
up the train of right figure.
On left a figure holds open a
money-box.
The Last Supper. * The Virgin
kneels to receive the Com
munion from her Son : St.
John's head rests on His
bosom. The drapery is very
fine. Underneath are a bottle
and a basket.
Empty.
82. Christ before Pilate.
83. Christ bearing the Cross. Muti
lated.
84. The Elevation of the Cross.
Much mutilated.
85. The Deposition. Much muti
lated.
Empty. The Resurrection. An angel
on either side, guards below.
Pentecost : the Birthday of
Holy Church. A dignified
group of figures.

86.87.

Fourth and Fifth Tiers. — The fourth and fifth tiers contained at
least 120 figures (about a dozen of which are gone), varying in height
from 7 ft. 10 in. to 8 ft. i in., a few running as high as 8 ft. 10 in.
They no doubt represent the kings, bishops, and heroes of English
history from Egbert to Henry II. Cockerell was probably right in
his general interpretation of the series, but it is easy to prove that he is
wrong in many of the names he gives. It is not so easy to suggest any
better, and therefore his names have stuck to the figures, since people
naturally like to know them by something more interesting than a number.
I shall therefore adopt his nomenclature, with the admission that equally
good grounds could be given in almost every case for some other theory.
Besides Mr Ferrey's account (Inst. Brit. Arch., 1870), quoted in inverted
commas, Cockerell's descriptions, inaccurate as they are, have been con
sulted, and also Mr Blanche's criticism of Cockerell.
The word Buttress means that the figure (generally a sitting one) is
on the west face of the buttress in question. Bishops ("Bp. "), unless
otherwise stated, wear the usual vestments — mitre, chasuble, dalmatic,
tunicle, stole, maniple, alb, and apparelled am.ice. Kings ("K.") and
Queens ( " Q. ") wear crowns. A favourite attitude is described as ' ' holding
cord " ; this cord being the lace or cord of the mantle, which crossed the

38

WELLS CATHEDRAL

chest and prevented that garment from falling off the shoulders. The
mantle seems to have had an uncomfortable tendency lo slip down, and
thus it became a habit constantly to pull the cord forward, whence the
frequency of this attitude. This cord was wrongly described by Cockerell
as a necklace, with which it has, of course, no connection. The word
' ' trampling " refers to another common feature in these tiers ; kings are
generally represented as trampling on a small figure under their feet,
to signify their success over their enemies. The figures of the fifth tier are
rather taller than those of the fourth. The first twenty figures on our list,
those of the fourth tier up to King Ina, may represent the twenty bishops
of the diocese from Athelm to Jocelin, in direct order, since the correspond
ing series of the fifth tier contains figures which cannot be those of bishops.
I have, however, kept to Cockerell's names to avoid confusion.

Fourth Tier.— 88. South Tower loi.
— Bzittiess — Sitting Bp.; much ^
decayed, supported by metal 102.
clamps.
89. Bp. Savaric. Much defaced,
head grotesquely so.
90. Bp. Robert. Much defaced,
head grotesquely.
Missing,
91. Buttress. Bp. Reginald de
Bohun, sitting ; somewhat
decayed.
92. Bp. Ethel weard, good drapery,
well - preserved ; no hair or
beard.
93. Sighelm, good drapery, well-
preserved ; ring of curly hair
and beard.
94. Alfry, in hood ; large curly
beard.
95. Etheleage, monastic dress,
cowl and scapular ; large
curly beard.
96. Bp. Asser. Short and stout
figure, in attitude of bene
diction.
97. Bp. Heahmund. Short and
stout figure, in attitude of
benediction.
98. Buttress. Bp. Wolfhelm. Fine
seated figure, in attitude of
benediction.
99. Bp. Ealhstan. Stout common
place figure ; rather mutilated.
100. Bp. Wilbert. Stout common
place figure; rather mutilated.

103.

104.
105.106.

107.

108.

109.

III.112.

Bp. Denefrith. Stoutcommon-
place figure ; better preserved.
Bp. Ethelnod. Stout common
place figure ; better preserved.
Buttress. Bp. Aethelhelm,
first Bishop of Wells * (re
produced on p. 22). Noble
figure, sitting in attitude of
benediction.
Bp. Herewald, in attitude
of benediction.
Bp. Forthere, head bent
slightly forward.
Bp. Ealdhelm. A fine figure.
Central Window {South).
K. Ina, looking over right
shoulder, hand gone. (These
central figures, Ina and Ethel-
burga, are supposed to be of
later date than the rest.)
Central Window.
Q. Ethelburga. Wears the
long kirtle with girdle, from
which are hung an ink-bottle
and aulmoniere.
Central Window {North).
K. Egbert, trampling, bearded ;
cloak falls in a graceful sweep
from right to left.
K. Ethelwulf, bearded. A
very short figure, but raised on
high stone (crouching figure ?)
higher than the others.
K. Ethelbald ; decayed.
Buttress. K. Edgar, sitting,
flat cap on head.

THE EXTERIOR

39

113. K. Ethelbert, smooth face,
trampling ; apparently holds
fragment of sceptre in right
hand, cord of mantle with
left.
114. K. Ethelred I., smooth face,
trampling, gracefully draped
cloak, holds fragment of
sceptre apparently in right,
and something indistinct in
left hand.
115. K. Edwy, left arm raised,
holding cloak, which is over
right shoulder.
116. K. Edward the Martyr,
bearded, holding cup (his
usual symbol) in left hand,
trampling. This is one of
the most likely ascriptions.
117. Buttress. K. Edmund, sit
ting, right arm uplifted, left
resting on knee. Fast de
caying.
118. K. Ethelred the Unready,
bearded, short figure, tramp
ling, but the trampled figure
leans easily on its elbow.
119. K. Cnut, bearded, short figure,
trampling, but the trampled
figure is apparently still
struggling.
120. Q. Osburga,* in long super-
tunic, with ample sleeves,
falling in folds over the feet.
The tight sleeve of her kirtle
appears on left arm, which
holds cord of mantle. Head
and neck in the wimple which
was not in thirteenth century
distinctive of nun's dress.
Book in right hand.
121. Q. Emma, in flowing super-
tunic with ample sleeves, and
wimple ; hands gone.
122. Harold I., no head covering,
trampling ; hands touching
girdle.
123. Harthacnut, like Harold, but
hands and part of face
gone.
124. Buttress. K. Edred, sitting.

right hand on knee, left raised
to cord, drapery crossed.
125. -Q. Edgitha, mantle falls round
over left foot.
126. Edmund Ironside.* Knight
in surcoat over chain armour,
hauberk but no helmet ; right
arm and left hand gone, but
head turned to left and atti
tude is that of drawing or
sheathing his sword.
127. Harold. Knight, hauberk
and surcoat of mail, cylin
drical helmet, shield on left
side ; delapidated.
128. North Side of Tower.
Buttress. Edward the Con
fessor, in cap ; sitting in atti
tude of judgment (Blanche),
left hand resting on right
ankle, this leg being crossed
over left knee.
129. Prince Richard.* Crowned
figure of great beauty, bearded,
head slightly bent to left
with a melancholy expression ;
hands gone.
130. Robert Curthouse,* bearded,
the right hand draws aside
part of the surcoat, exposing
right leg in curious hose ; left
leg covered by surcoat.
131. K. Rufus,* bearded, right
hand holds cord of mantle,
left holds border of mantle
across his body.
132. Q. Matilda, flowing hair, holds
mantle in left hand.
133. Emperor Henry, crowned,
holds cord of mantle, with
right hand fingering end of
his girdle. ,
134. K. Stephen, right hand holds
cord of mantle, left on
girdle.
135. K. Henry II., end of cloak
thrown over shoulder, holds
the fold with both hands ; in
good preservation.
136. Buttress. K. William the
Conqueror, sitting in inenac-

4°

WELLS CATHEDRAL

137- 138.

139-

140.

141.

142,143'

ing attitude, elbows project- 154.
ing, and hands upon knees. 1 55.
Prince Henry. A dignified
figure ; hands gone. 156.
Prince Geoffrey. Beautiful 157-
figure, head gone, holds cord 158.
of mantle, loose sleeves, and 159.
gooddrapery. (Ferrey is wrong
in calling this a female figure. )
Q. Maude the Good, flowing
hair, left hand on girdle of
supertunic, dress fastened at
neck with "a beautiful jewel"
(Ferrey). 160.
Adelais. Graceful figure, with
flowing hair.
Buttress. K. Henry I., sit
ting in defiant attitude, right
arm akimbo, left knee raised, l6l.
foot on pedestal.
Missing. Missing.Missing. K. John.* A beautiful figure. 162.
Henry III., no crown, stand
ing, but right knee raised to
suit the weathering of aisle 163.
roof.
Fifth Tier. — 144. South Tower.
Buttress on the south side.
Sitting Bp., supported by 164.
metal clamps.
Bp. J. de Villula; hands gone, 165.
much decayed, clamped. 166.
Bp. Gisa ; hands gone. 167.
Bp. Duduc* ; right hand gone,
book in left.
148. iJaWrew. Bp. Lyfing ; decayed. 16S.
149. Bp. Merewit ; hands gone.
Bp. Brihtwine ; hands gone.
Aethelwine. Fine figure with 1 69.
long wavy beard spreading at
end, hood and mantle, aul
moniere at girdle.
52. Burwold, tall bearded figure 170.
in hood, satchel (?) hanging
from girdle.
Bp. Aelfwine. * Beautiful figure 171.
in cowl, curly hair and beard,
finely draped habit with
loose sleeves. 172.

145-146.147.

ISO.151

153-

Bp. Sigegar, book in left hand.
Buttress. Bp. Brithelm, head
turned to right ; decayed.
Bp. Cyneward.
Bp. Wulfhelm. A fine figure.
Bp. Elfege. A fine figure.
Edfleda, flowing hair, in
supertunic or surcoat with
long and wide sleeves, head
covered with veil, which
hangs behind, no wimple.
Nothing conventual to suggest
Edfleda.
Buttress. K. Edward the
Elder. Fine figure, right hand
on knees, left on cord of
mantle.Missing.
Edgitha. Very tall figure, right
hand on cord, left holds end
of veil.
.Wssing.
Central Window {South).
Q. Edgiva, kirtle only, with
crown and veil, no wimple.
Central Window.
Ethilda. Wears supertunic
over her kirtle, veil and
wimple.
Central Window {North).
Hugh. A sword hangs from
his girdle on left side.
Elgiva. Q. Edgiva ; hands gone.
Buttress. K. Ethelstan,
defiant attitude, right foot on
stool, wears brooch.
K. Charles the Simple. A
squat figure with very big
head, trampling.
Otho, close - fitting tunic,
over which is mantle with
handsome fastening.
Missing.
Guthrum. Knight in surcoat,
mail hauberk and chausses,
shield on left side.
Buttress. K. Alfred, seated ;
both hands gone, front de
cayed, and clamped.
Earl of Mercia.* Knight in

THE EXTERIOR

41

helmet with cross-slit, holding
right hand up and shield
upon left arm ; the surcoat
turned over below the waist
shows a suit of mail. Well
preserved.
173. St. Neot (more probably St.
Decuman, as St. Neot was not
beheaded). Bp. holding with
both hands the upper part
of his head, which has
been cut off across the brows.
174. Ethelfleda,* the Lady of the
Mercians. A striking and
beautiful figure with flowing
hair, long veil hanging below
the waist, supertunic held by
brooch, but without sleeves,
the tight sleeves of her kirtle
being visible to the shoulders.
175. Ethelward. Woman with
flowing hair, veil ; hands gone.
176. Grim bald. Priest ; hands gone.
177. St. Elfege, Archb. ; hands
gone ; a noble figure.
178. Buttress. St. Dunstan, upper
part decayed.
179. Turketul. Short figure,
trampling, in very pointed
cloak, big head in cap.
180. John Scotus.* A beautiful
figure, with exquisitively fine
drapery that looks as thin as
gauze. Missing.
181. North Side of Tower. —
Buttress. Robert, Archbishop
of Canterbury, standing, hold
ing book in right hand, left
hand gone ; no mitre.
182. Q. Elgiva, drapery falls from
left shoulder, is folded over
right arm ; book in left hand.
183. Q. Edgitha. Tall, gaunt figure ;
veil falls in long folds to Itnee,
right arm close to side, left
hand holds cord.
184. Q. Edburga, circlet round
head, brooch on her breast,
holds drapery in right hand.
Missing.

185. 186. 187.

190.

191,

192.

Missing.
Christina, Abbess of Romsey.*
Beautiful female figure, hold
ing box in left hand : "her
dress is peculiar " ; one end
of veil is caught over right
shoulder, the other falls down
in front on right side (p. 31).
Wulston of Winchester,
bearded, "with distended
ears" ; right hand gone.
Buttress. Archb. Aid red
of York, sitting; "mitre
modern," it is conical in
shape.
Edgar Atheling. Knight,
spurred, in surcoat only,
with sword girded outside,
no mail, but close-fitting cap
arid fillet on head : the fillet
was used for the large
cylindrical helmet to rest on.
He carries what may be a
palmer's hat (Cockerell
points out that Edgar went
on a pilgrimage) ; but Planch^
says it must be a small Saxon
buckler, as pilgrims did not
carry swords. It certainly
looks like a hat.
Robert the Saxon. Knight
in hauberk, without mail, but
feet spurred, cap on head,
shield and sword.
Falk of Anjou. Knight in
hauberk and chausses of
mail, hood of hauberk en
closing whole head except a
portion of the face : on head
is the thick fillet. He covers
his body with a shield. His
surcoat is deeply jagged.
Robert of Normandy. Knight,
in hauberk and complete suit
of mail, in good preservation,
shield with boss on it held
down : he wears cyclindrical
helmet, his eyes and nose
being visible through .the slit.
Buttress. B. Roger of Salis
bury, sitting, without mitre.

42 WELLS CATHEDRAL
Missing. approved by Planche. (He
Missing. is commonly called by chil-
193. Female figure, holding drapery dren "the pancake man,"
with right arm, left hand on the conventional water sug-
side. gesting round cakes).
194. St. Nicholas, the patron saint 195. Female figure, in good preser-
of baptism, stands in water up vation, but clamped in a
to knees, holding a child in sloping position, drapery
each arm. This ascription is good.
The Resurrection Tier. — The sixth tier ( 195-283) consists of a series of
small canopies which run continuously under the cornice that finishes the
main division of the front. Above and around, the spandrels are filled with
beautiful foliage most boldly undercut. Each of the eighty-eight canopies
(of which thirty are on the north side) contains a figure, or group of
figures, representing the Resurrection of the dead. In spite of a rather
defective anatomy, these figures are singularly impressive, "startling in
significance, pathos, and expression," are Cockerell's words. They are
naked — crowns, mitres, and tonsures alone remaining to distinguish their
oflSce. They awaken by degrees, heave up the lids of their tombs, and
draw themselves up slowly, as if scarcely yet awake. Some sit in a
strange dreamy posture with folded arms, some seem expectant, others are
in attitudes of fear, hope, defiance, and despair. There are none of the
grotesque accessories which are too common in ancient representations of
this subject, but the awful feeling of a great awakening shivers along this
range of naked, grey, stone figures. It is probably the earliest representa
tion of the subject in art ; it is certainly the most profound and spiritual.
The Angels' Tier. — This is immediately above the Resurrection Tier,
and occupies the lower part of the gable only. The angelic figures stand
in nine low niches with well-moulded trefoil heads that rested on blue lias
shafts ; the two niches on the returns of the buttresses also contain angels,
which are represented as blowing- trumpets. In all probability the nine
figures symbolise the nine orders of the heavenly hierarchy, and I have
ventured to give the names which the attributes and position suggest to
my mind as the most likely. Mr Ferrey's account is quoted in inverted
commas : it must be remembered that he had the advantage of a close
inspection from the scaffolding.
284. Thrones. " Angel holding an dilapidated to make out
open book," two wings, long what its attributes are. "
robe, facing to his right. 288. {Central Figure). Powers.
285. Cherubim. " Seraph," with "Beautifully robed, holding
four wings, "apparently a sceptre," two wings: the
holding n banner, " decayed. dress is very ample and
286. Seraphim. "Seraph," with majestic.
four wings, "entirely 289. Virtues. "Robed in a short
feathered, with bare legs tunic, with an ornamental
and feet," face gone. border, the legs are encased in
287. Dominations. "Angel wear- armour," wears "a jewelled
ing a helmet,'' in vigorous cap," two wings.
attitude, two wings, "too 290. Principalities. "A Seraph,

THE EXTERIOR

43

2qi

entirely feathered, holding a
vessel shaped like a bowl,"
with flames issuing out of it,
the legs and feet being also
enveloped in ' ' wavy lines of
flames : probably the aveng
ing angel " ; four wings.
Archangels. " Apparently
holding a crown in the right

and left hands, close to his
breast," long robe covering
the feet ; two wings.
292. Angels. " Carrying a regal
or small hand organ," in left
hand, four wings, decayed ;
apparently bearing a wand in
right hand.

The Apostles' Tier. — The next tier, that of the Apostles, who are thus
raised above the angels, contains twelve figures of imposing design, later in
style than the rest of the statuary. The figures are hollowed out at the back
so as to press less heavily on the tier beneath. The arrangement of these
niches is very happily managed, so as to avoid any monotony in the range of
twelve similar niches ; for, besides the natural division formed by the small
attached shafts between the figures, an additional projecting shaft in every
third division forms the tier into four large bays with three figures in
each. The capitals of these niches are remarkable, the graceful foliage
being disposed in a very free manner, in some cases growing upwards, in
others bent down, but always true to the outline of the capital. Of the
figures themselves the central one, in the place of honour, and taller than
the rest, is St. Andrew. The others are not all so easy to name, the
attributes of some having disappeared ; and, although Cockerell gave
names to them all (some of which were certainly wrong), we may content
ourselves with the following list, which at least is accurate so far as it
goes: —

293. No symbol in hand, which is
covered with drapery. (Car
ter's drawing represents a
staff or spear, but he is
quite unreliable, though it is
occasionally possible that
the attributes he draws did
exist when he saw the
figures a century ago.
294. Book (?) in right hand, a vessel
or bag of cylindrical form is
apparently suspended from
the^ left arm. Perhaps St.
Matthew with his purse.
295. Holds something, which
may be the fuller's club, in
which case the figure is that
of St. James the Less; forked
beard.
296. Club (?) in hand, long curly
hair and beard. There is
something near the knee,
which may be a palmer's
hat. (Carter drew this figure

299.

as St. Bartholomew with
knife and skin.)
297. Carter drew this figure as St.
Peter with the keys.
298. St. Andrew with his cross ;
he is so tall that his head
fills the upper portion of the
canopy.
St. John holding the chalice,
which has large bowl and
short stem ; wavy hair. This
is the only figure not bearded.
St. James the Greater. Staff
in right hand, large satchel
on left side hung from hand
over right shoulder, book in
left hand (the book of the
Gospels with which St. James
is always represented, in
addition to the pilgrim's
stiff and scrip"). He wears
a high cap.
Perhaps St. Paul (who is
often represented among the

301.

44

WELLS CATHEDRAL

Twelve), with sword and
book.
302. St. Philip holds drapery in
right hand. Ferrey says the
five loaves can be dis
tinguished.
303. Long hair and head-dress like
a veil bound by a fillet round
the brows, forked beard,
book in left hand, girdle.
304. This figure occasioned much
controversy, owing to Carter
having drawn it witha crown.
Cockerell therefore attributed
it to St. Peter, and said that
the crown showed Bishop
Jocelin's papistical tenden
cies ! Planch^ scoffed at
this, remarking with truth

that none of the Apostles are
ever represented with crowns,
but he caused even greater
confirsion by suggesting that
the figure stood for a Saxon
king, and that the tier, in
spiteof the Apostolic number,
did not represent the twelve
Apostles. If he had looked
at the actual figures instead
of Carter's drawings he would
have seen that there is no
crown at all. In the photo
graphs this is still clearer, the
Apostle'sheadbeingevidently covered by nothing more im
posing than his own long hair
or a veil like that of the pre
ceding figure.

The Uppermost Tier. — The whole magnificent series was fitly crowned
by this group (305), of which only the lower part of the central figure re
mains. That, however, sufficiently attests the noble character of the
rest : it represents our Lord seated in glory within a vesica -shaped niche.
The feet are pierced. It seems to have been mutilated by Monmouth's
followers, for it still bears the marks of their bullets. The two figures
in the niches on either side must also have been destroyed at this time,
for they are shown in a print in Dugdale's Monasticon. Ferrey cannot
have seen this print when he suggested that the figures were of angels
censing, for they are there given as representing Our Lady (new covenant)
and John Baptist (old covenant).

The Western Towers. — The projection of these towers
beyond the aisles of the nave gives its great breadth to the
west front, which is 147 feet across, as against the 116 feet of
the almost contemporary cathedral of Amiens, which is twice
its height. It is an unusual arrangement, of which there is no
exactly similar example except at Rouen. Above the screen
the towers are Perpendicular, the southern tower having been
completed towards the end of the fourteenth, and the northern
at the beginning of the fifteenth century. They are thus later
additions to the original design of the front, and make it more
difficult for us to realise the effect that was first intended.
These two towers are very nearly alike, but the southern, or
Harewell, tower is some forty years the earlier of the two, and
belongs to the earliest days of the Perpendicular style. Bishop
Harewell having died in 1 386. The northern tower was built

Dazvkes &^ Partridge, Photo. ]
THE CENTRAL TOWER : FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.

THE EXTERIOR 47
with a sum of money left for the purpose by Bishop Bubwith,
who died in 1424, and his arms are carved high up on a
buttress upon the north side, those on the west being a modern
copy. In one of its two western niches is a figure of the
bishop in prayer. Both the towers have two belfry windows on
each side, tiny battlements, and a stair-turret on the outer western
angle ; in both the buttresses are carried up, with but slight re
duction in bulk, two-thirds of their height and then finished
with small pinnacles. There are, however, certain slight differ
ences between the two towers ; their height is not exactly equal,
and there are no niches on the earlier one. The south tower
contains a peal of eight bells ; that on the north is traditionally
considered " rotten," but to all appearance it is sound enough.
The Central Tower is Early English to the level of the
roof The two upper stages are Decorated, but there is a
curious inter-mixture of styles in them, owing to the repairs
that were made after the settlements of 1321. The chapter
seemed determined to allow no possibility of another accident,
for besides the inverted arches and buttresses of the interior, the
original high narrow windows of the upper part of the tower
have been fortified by later insertions, by way of bonding and
stiffening the structure, which had been so endangered by
the sinking of its piers below. There are, however, no signs
of any rents in the Decorated part. The tower has square
angular turrets, and is divided vertically into three main com
partments, each division being marked by a small pinnacle,
and the turrets by large compound pinnacles. It is an in
teresting tower to ascend, the rents in the wall being plainly
discernible ; and from the summit there is a fine view of Wells
and of the valley in which the city stands.
The North Porch is perhaps the finest piece of architecture
at Wells, though it generally receives far less attention than it
deserves. It is certainly the oldest part of the church, and
must have been the first work which Bishop Reginald under
took, about 1185; in style it retains much of the Norman
influence. The mouldings of the noble entrance arch are
numerous and bold, and twice the Norman zig-zag occurs,
though enriched with leaves in a manner that suggests the
coming Gothic. A weather moulding, exquisitely carved with
deeply undercut foliage, covers the arch. Its capitals on the
east side contain figures among their leaves representing the

48 WELLS CATHEDRAL
martyrdom of St. Edmund the King: the first three of the
caps have the saint in the midst, crowned, and transfixed with
a number of conventionally-arranged arrows, and his enemies,
two on either side, drawing their bows ; the fourth cap shows
an executioner cutting off the saint's head ; in the fifth
the head is found by the wolf; the sixth has been partly cut
away, but the body of the wolf and the heads of two figures
remain. In the spandrels above are two square panels containing a
cockatrice, and another strange beast. The gable is filled with
an arcade, the central member of which is corbelled off to
make room underneath for three little lancet windows which
light the parvise chamber within. The buttresses of the porch
have slender shafts at the angles, which are finished off with
foliage of a remarkably free and graceful kind ; it should be
noticed as an example of those subtle touches that are so
abundant in this porch. On the buttresses are pinnacles with
an arcade, at the top of which little openings cast a shadow
that gives a lightness to the whole effect. A smaller pinnacle
is at the apex of the gable, and underneath it an ornament of
twisted foliage.
Nothing could well surpass the interior of this porch ; the
delicacy and refinement which are shown in every detail are
the more amazing when we consider that the architect and his
masons had only just emerged from the large methods of Norman
building. A range of three arcades on either side is divided
in the midst by three shafts boldly detached from the pear-
shaped moulding round which they are grouped. These shafts
carry the ribs of the groined vault, and divide the porch into
two square bays. Their capitals are very boldly undercut, and
bear distinct traces of Romanesque influence ; indeed, the
volutes of the cap on the west side give it almost the appear
ance of a very freely-carved Corinthian capital. Those at the
angles are of like fashion, except that on the north-east, which
has fuller and freer foliage, wherein stands a man shooting with
his bow at a bird, the whole most vigorously conceived.
In the uppermost arcade the little touch of foliage that is
worked on to the junction of the muUions (which are made up
of four pear-shaped mouldings) illustrates the love of delicate
things that is so characteristic of this architect. Below is a
projecting double arcade, behind which, against the wall, is a

y^^

777^ / .^wM^'

Daivkes dr' Partridge, Photo.] THE NORTH PORCH.

THE EXTERIOR 51
third row of arches : the outer mouldings intersect and the
abaci of the outer caps are finished off in a carefully restrained
curl of foliage ; those on the soffit are deeply undercut, by
means of which a very black shadow is secured. All the
capitals are carved with the stiff-leafed foliage ; and in the
spandrels are grotesque beasts, full of character. The string
course below is finished with dragons who bend round and
swallow the end of the string, their tails (on the west side)
twisting right along the moulding. It is significant of the free
way in which the masons were employed, that the carving varies
very much on the two sides. The grotesques in the spandrels
above mentioned are finest on the east side, but the dragons of
the string course are best on the west side, where their
expressions, as they bite the moulding, are full of life and
humour. On this western side, too, the foliage which fills the
spandrels of the lowest arcade is at its best ; it is indeed the
purest and truest piece of decorative work in the whole
cathedral. Each moulding in this beautiful porch, from the
filleted ribs of the groins to the bands round the shafts, and
the moulded edge of the stone bench, is most carefully thought
out, and adapted to its position, in a way that every architect
will appreciate. The double doorway which leads into the
church has an unusual and most effective moulding on its
jambs, very large and simple, with slight projections worked
upon it : the inner moulding of the enclosing arch, however,
is a boldly projecting zig-zag, the supporting capitals of which
have two figures, one in a cope, the other a bishop in a very
pointed chasuble. The central pillar is of much later date.
Above is a square recess filled with later masonry, where
perhaps a figure was once inserted.
Most happily, the North Porch has been spared from the
restorer's hand. It is a unique and most beautiful example of
early work ; any restoration of it would practically destroy it,
and would be an unpardonable crime. The hungry eye of
the modern vandal is sure to seize on this piece of virgin work,
sooner or later ; for its very purity will tempt him. We only
hope that when that day comes the Chapter will be faithful to
their trust.
The gfable end of the north transept, which must be very
near to the north porch in date, is a very similar example of the
early work. It is flanked by turrets which are capped with

52 WELLS CATHEDRAL
pinnacles ; both turrets, pinnacles and wall are rich with
arcading, the effect of which is especially charming in the
gable, where, by a happy device, the weather moulding is made
to curve suddenly over the two topmost arches, filling the angle
at the apex of the coping, and leaving a little space between
it and the two arches to be occupied by foliage.
The general character of the walls is distinctly Transitional ;
the buttresses are almost as low, broad, shallow and massive
as in Norman work ; and the windows, though now filled with
Perpendicular tracery, are so broad that, were they but round-
headed, they would look more Norman than much real Norman
work. The richness of exterior effect is much increased by a most
graceful Decorated parapet, which is carried all round the
church on the wall of both nave and aisles. As for the masonry
as a whole, with the exception of the west front nothing could
be sounder and more skilfully executed. Mr Britton's opinion
was that "perhaps there is not a church in the kingdom of the
same age where the stone has been so well chosen, better put
together, and where it remains in so perfect a state : this
deserves the particular notice and study of architects."*
The Chain Gate, one of the peculiar glories of Wells,
is really a bridge over the roadway, built by Bishop
Beckington and his executors, to connect the chapter-house
staircase with the vicars' close. Freeman spoke of it as
a " marvel of ingenuity," yet perhaps its excellence consists
rather in its simplicity. A covered way was needed to the
close, but the road lay between, and so a bridge was built ;
the bridge had to rest on something : three arches were
therefore made, one large for carts, and two small for
foot-passengers ; a further space had to be spanned be
tween the road and the staircase : the bridge was therefore
continued on the same level, but, as the ground here was
lower, the arch on this side was built on a lower level.
Furthermore, the two ends of the bridge not being exactly
opposite to one another, the bridge had to turn at a slight
angle where it reaches the road. It is just such simple
adaptation of means to an end that gave his chance to a
medieval architect ; it is this that gives what is called its
picturesqueness to an ancient town, it is this that makes
* Cathedrals, iv. 98.

THE EXTERIOR

S3

nature so picturesque. A modern architect would have
built his bridge in a straight line across the road, and have
pulled down something to avoid the irregularity; he would
not have had the sense of proportion which alone was

Dawkes dr' Partridge, Photo.] THE BISHOP'S EVE.

needed to make utility supremely beautiful. The builder
of the Chain Gate just used his opportunities to their very
best. He saw that but a small thing was wanted, that the
close must not be dwarfed ; so he kept the work little and
delicate, rich and light : he made its chief beauty to
lie in its bijou character. Yet he preserved its dignity by

54 WELLS CATHEDRAL
the wide opening of the central arch, the height of which
is emphasised by the smallness of the two arches on either
side. But although the two small arches effect so much
by their contrast with the large one, the harmony of the gateway
is preserved by the panelling above them which marks this
part of the bridge off from the rest. On the south of the
gate is a blank wall, supported by a buttress which was
wanted here, and so here was put. On the south of the
buttress is the lower arch which is so admirable a foil both
to the height of the main gateway and the delicacy of the
windows. A correctly - minded architect would not have
tolerated this blank wall and irregularly-placed arch ; but
substitute what you will for the wall, or alter the height
of the arch, or replace both by an arcade, and the dignity
of the little gateway is gone. It may further be noticed
that the builder kept the upper and lower stages very
distinct, and made the upper storey as clearly a bridge as
the lower is a gateway : the charming little windows run
in a continuous range over blank wall, gate, and all, but
they are grouped closer together over the gate. A battle-
mented parapet finishes the top of the bridge. Niches are
placed in the midst of the two windows over the gate ;
they contain graceful statues of St. Andrew and other saints.
In the wide moulding of the string course there are angels,
curiously placed in a horizontal position, as well as the
stags' heads of Beckington's arms.
, Passing under the Chain Bridge a good view of the
chapter-house is obtained. It is a massive, buttressed octagon,
the lower stage marked by the small broad barred windows
of the undercroft, the next by the rather squat traceried
windows of the house itself, while under the cornice is an
open arcade. The gargoyles are interesting. A parapet,
different in design and inferior to that of the church itself,
finishes the building. From this part of the road, there
is a good view of the cathedral in one of its most characiter-
istic aspects ; — the Lady Chapel, the low buildings of the
north-eastern transept and retro-choir, the chapter-house in
the foreground, all lying on ground below the level of the
road, and over the Chain Bridge a glimpse of the north
transept gable and the north-west tower.
A queer corner, hidden by a thick tree, is formed between the

THE EXTERIOR 55
chapter-house and the choir aisle ; in spite of the obscure
position, a fine gargoyle of the head and shoulders of a man,
carved in unusually colossal proportions, is placed here at a
low altitude, to carry off the water that must gather at the
junction of aisle with undercroft passage. Through the walls
that rise high on either side a capital glimpse of the tower can
be had.
From the same road, opposite the prebendal house (now
allotted to the Principal of the Theological College), which has
a picturesque Perpendicular doorway with a window above,
the grouping of the Lady Chapel with the rest of the church
can be well seen.
The rich and light appearance of the east end is due not only
to the charm of its tracery, which contrasts so well with the
network of the Lady Chapel windows, and to the parapet which
rises slightly in the centre, but also to the three lights which
pierce the gable ; of these the upper is diamond-shaped, and
thus the masonry that is left has the appearance of a stout
Y cross.
From the South-East. — One of the most interesting
views of the exterior is from the lovely grass-plot on the east
of the cloisters, where once stood the cloister Lady Chapel,
and where the vicars were formerly buried. It is being again
used as a cemetery, which is unfortunate, since there are few
things more irreligiously dismal than a modern burial-ground,
and already a cluster of marble and granite monuments has
arisen to spoil one of the most peaceful and unspoilt places in
Wells. If monuments there must be (and why need we so
advertise the dead ?), let them at least be quiet and humble and
beautiful : those ostentatious erections of hard and polished
stone ruin the grey walls before which they stand ; their frigid
materials are too obtrusive for Christian modesty, too enduring
for human memory. May we not yet hope that this spot will
be spared the fate of the cloister garth ?
From here the Lady Chapel is well seen as quite a separate
building, joined to the rest of the church only in its lower part,
and with its own parapet round all its eight sides ; its form
harmonises most charmingly with the square presbytery behind
it, and with the lofty chapter-house, like itself octagonal. A
further beauty is added by the solitary flying buttress which
stands out at the south-eastern corner ; though certain rents in

56 WELLS CATHEDRAL
the southern wall show that the buttress was built for reasons
of the gravest utility. On the south side of the chapel there is
a little door, covered by what looks at first like a kind of porch,
but it is really the passage of a small vestry (p. 132) which was
built up against the wall ; the roof of the vestry was a little
higher than that of the passage, and must have leant against
the wall just under the window, as is proved by its gargoyle
near the passage door. This vestry was fatuously destroyed in
the early part of this century by an oflficial who did not even
know that it was medieval work till the soundness of the
masonry proved almost too much for his workmen.
The junction between the earlier and the later presbytery is
well seen from here — too well seen, in fact, for it is awkwardly
managed. The later choir windows, with their crocketed ogee
hood-moulds, are a good feature, and so are the flying buttresses;
but the high-pitched roof of the earlier aisle is discontinued at
the break in order to give room for these windows and
buttresses ; and the effect of this sudden termination of an
aisle roof half-way along a building is not pleasant. In the
earlier part, too, the later windows have been clumsily inserted
some distance below the Early English dripstone, as if only the
internal effect had been considered. The same may also be
said of the window in the south transept gable : the gable, by
the way, is a much plainer affair than that of the north
transept. Here stood the two Cloister Lady Chapels, but unfor
tunately their sites were not marked on the grass after the
excavations were finished three years ago. I'hus nothing can
be seen from here of the earlier chapel, and, of the later, only
the doorway and the Perpendicular panelling against the
cloister which marks its western end, and the commencement
of the walls. A small quatrefoiled hagioscope may be noticed
in the library above the cloister; it, no doubt, commanded
a view of the high altar of the chapel.
The earlier Capella 13. M. V. juxta claustrum is often referred
to in the chapter documents, and was a favourite centre of
devotion. It became a kind of family chapel for the numerous
clan of Byttons, after the first bishop of that name was buried
there ; it was also sometimes used as a chapter-house. The
Early English doorway which led to it can still be seen in the
cloister wall, on the right of the present doorway ; it is partly

THE EXTERIOR 57
covered by an I.H.S. of later date, made with the instruments
of the Passion. The excavations of 1894, when the founda
tions were laid bare under Mr Buckle's direction, showed that
this chapel consisted originally of a plain oblong building,
earlier even than the north porch in date (i.e. before 1185),
which was afterwards (c. 1275) enlarged by the addition of an
aisle on either side. The excavations showed that arches were
used at this time to replace the western part of the older walls,
and thus to throw the ancient chapel open to its new aisles.
The original chapel, then, if it was not actually part of Bishop
Gisa's buildings, spared when John de Villula destroyed Gisa's
cloister, seems to have been built not long after Gisa's time,
and at least on the site of Gisa's chapel. This would account
for its orientation, which was in a more northerly direction
than that of the cathedral, and probably was the same as that
of the pre-Norman church. Excellent plans of the foundations
both of this and the later chapel are to be found in the
Somerset Proceedings for 1894, where the whole matter is dis
cussed in detail by Canon Church and Mr Edmund Buckle.
The later chapel on this site was built by Bishop Stillington
(1466-91) : it followed the orientation of the cathedral, and was
of much larger size than the former building, being about
107 ft. in length. It consisted of a nave, transepts and choir,
with fan-tracery vault, of which some fragments have been
lately fixed in the cloister wall. Most profusely ornamented
and panelled within, as can be seen by the west end against
the cloister wall, it is considered to have been the chef d'auvre
of the Somerset Perpendicular, surpassing even Sherborne and
St. Mary, Redcliffe.
But its glory was not to be for long. Stillington was buried
in this "goodly Lady Chapell in the Cloysters," says Godwin,
" but rested not long there ; for it is reported that divers olde
men, who in their youth had not onely seene the celebration of
his funeral, but also the building of his tombe, chapell, and
all did also see tombe and chapell destroyed, and the bones of
the Bishop that built them turned out of the lead in which
they were interred." This was in 1552, when Bishop Barlow
and the chapter made a grant to that barbarous scoundrel.
Sir John Gates, of "the chappie, sett, lyinge and beynge by
the cloyster on the south syde of the said Cathedral Church of
Wells, commonly called the Ladye Chappie, with all the stones

58

WELLS CATHEDRAL

and stonework, ledde, glasse, tymbre, and iron . . . the soyle
that the sayd chappie standeth upon only excepted." The
condition was that the rubble should be all cleared away, and
the ground made "fayre and playn," within four years; but

Dawkes &^ Partridge, Photo.]
DOORWAY, SOUTH-EAST OF CLOISTER.
before this period had elapsed, Sir John's head had gone the
way of the Lady Chapel.
The Cloister in its more prominent features is Perpen
dicular, having been rebuilt in the fifteenth century. Neverthe
less the outer walls are of Jocelin's date, together with the doorway
leading into the palace (see illustration on this page) ; and the
lower part of the east cloister wall, including the two small

Dawkes &~ Partridge ^ Photo \
EAST WALK OF CLOISTER.

THE EXTERIOR 6i
doorways therein, is said by Mr Buckle to be undoubtedly
earlier than Jocelin's time, and contemporary with the north
porch, c. 1185. Thus we have still the original plan at least
of the thirteenth-century cloisters. This plan is characteristic
of a non-monastic church, where the cloister is not the centre
of a common life, but merely an ornamental convenience which
might or might not be added, and when added might be of
any fashion that was desired. There is no walk on the north
side, no refectory or dormitory, and the plan is not square, as
would be the case with a conventual building, but an irregular
parallelogram, while the eastern walk is built up against the
south end of the transept instead of against its western wall.
The inner part of Jocelin's cloister was probably a wooden
penthouse like that of Glastonbury. At all events, it has
entirely disappeared. The eastern alley was built by the
executors of Bishop Bubwith, who died in 1424. That on the
west, with its rooms, was built by Beckington (1443-65) and his
executors. That on the south was completed soon after by
Thomas Henry, the treasurer. Beckington, by the way, showed
a reckless disregard of the earlier work by carrying his cloister
right up against the south-west tower, and completely conceal
ing the beautiful arcading of that part. Beckington's execu
tors, in the time of Bishop Stillington, also built the singing
school over the western cloister. Bubwith's executors built
the northern part of the library over the eastern cloister ; but
the southern part was added at a later date. The square
windows were inserted later still by the famous Dr Busby,
about 1670. The fourteen bays of lierned vaulting over the
east alley, and one on the south, were executed in 1457-8 by
John Turpyn Lathamo, at the cost, we find from the fabric
roll, of fd. per foot, or jQd, iis. 3d. for the whole, though an
additional ten shillings was presented to him for his diligence.
Each alley consists of thirteen bays in the Perpendicular
style; the windows are now all unglazed, of six lights, with
transoms and tracery ; between the windows are buttresses to
support the rooms above, which extend, however, only over the
east and west alleys. Turpyn's vaulting is of a curiously
decadent character, which reminds one of the Jacobean Gothic
of Oxford and Cambridge. The ribs spread at the start to
enclose a trefoiled panel, and they curve into one another
when they meet at the bosses. In the rest of the south walk.

62 WELLS CATHEDRAL
however, the bosses are square, and receive the ribs in the
usual manner; in the west walk they are still square, and
more varied in their ornament, bearing Beckington's initials,
arms, and rebus, arranged in several different ways. Beck
ington's arms, which occur also on the gateways, are argent on
a fess azure, between in chief three bucks' heads caboshed
gules, and in base as many pheons sable, a bishop's mitre or.
His rebus is a fire beacon lighted, a tun holding the fire.
Two small stone pent-houses, of which the purpose is un
certain, are built up against the windows of the fourth and
sixth bays of the eastern alley. The vault of this alley was
built without reference to the fine Early English doorway into
the transept, one side of which it hides, the weather moulding
being cut away. This doorway is mentioned in an Act of the
Chapter of 1297, but it was probably made by Jocelin before
he built the cloister wall, which comes uncomfortably near to
the door, as if it were an afterthought. The companion door
way from the western alley, which was the usual entrance to
the cathedral in the thirteenth century,- has been similarly
defaced by the vault. Three annual fairs used to be held in
the cemetery, till Bishop Reginald set apart for the purpose
the new ground which is still the market-place. The
traditional entrance to the church by this south-western porch
may have been due to the fact that the citizens gathered for
secular business on the south-western side. At the south end
of the eastern alley is the Early English bishop's doorway,
which no doubt led straight to the palace in the days when
there was no moat to obstruct this route. The door was
originally hung to open inwards ; a beautiful moulding was
destroyed to hang it in its present position. There is a bracket
of later date over this doorway.
The cloister-garth, which is hideous with modern tomb
stones, is traditionally called the Palm Churchyard, no doubt
because of the yew which grows there. Yew trees, so common
in churchyards, are still commonly called palms, because their
branches were used for the procession on Palm Sunday. This
churchyard was anciently the burial-place of the canons, the
ground east of the cloister (now used again as a cemetery)
being reserved for the vicars, while the space before the west
front was the lay burial-ground.
An admirably contrived dipping-place was still standing in

THE EXTERIOR 63
the Palm churchyard, near the second bay of the east cloister,
within the memory of living persons, but now no trace of it
remains above ground. A water-course, held within a channel
of carefully-worked masonry, runs under the eastern cloister
from St. Andrew's well, and passes on to fall ultimately into
the old mill-stream. The oblong building over it that formed
the dipping-place was entered at the south end, and a few
steps (with aumbries for the linen at either side) led to
the washing-place at the little stream. An arch covered this
spot, where the water ran through two low arches on either
side and was bridged in the midst by a pavement. The place
was used for washing linen, and the water required for the
cathedral was drawn here before the modern supply pipes
were introduced.
The Library is over the east walk of the cloister, and is
entered from the south transept. It is a charming old-world
place, full of ancient volumes, many of which are of great
interest. A passage runs from end to end, along the east side
of the long room, the other side being mainly occupied by the
old desks, benches and bookcases, which project at right angles
to the wall, many of the book-chains still hanging on them.
There are said to be over three thousand volumes, including
the bulk of Bishop Ken's library, a collection of early editions
of his works, and his copy of Bishop Andrewe's "Devotions."
There are also several books (including one Aldine " Aristode")
with MS. notes and autograph of Erasmus. The collection of
old charters, which have recently been made to throw so much
light on the history of the cathedral, is also preserved here.
Some of the most interesting charters are displayed in glass
cases ; one of them, Edgar's grant to Ealhstane, is specially
venerable for the signature of St. Dunstan — Ego Dunstan Ep.
— which occurs third among the witnesses to the document.
Two precious relics of medieval times are also kept here.
One, which is generally called a lantern, was till lately hung in
the undercroft. There is no trace of its ever having been used
as a lantern, and it is probably the wooden canopy of the
pyx which hung before the high altar. The Blessed
Sacrament was in medieval times reserved, not in a taber
nacle, but in a hanging pyx of precious metal ; and this
graceful wooden canopy probably contained the pyx. There
are only two other possible examples of the pyx-canopy (at

64 WELLS CATHEDRAL
Milton Abbas and Tewkesbury), and both are of later date
than this, which is thirteenth century. Woodwork of this
period is so rare that, even were it not a pyx-canopy, it would
be of extreme interest. It is cylindrical in form, divided into
three storeys of open tracery, and crowned with a cresting of
three-lobed leaves. Its height is 3 ft. 11^ in., its internal
diameter 14I inches. It is made of oak, certain parts of
a later restoration being of deal. Mr St. John Hope (Proc.
of Soc. of Antiquaries, 1897), thus enumerates the traces
of colour: "The whole of the body and its upper and lower
rings have been painted red, with gold flowers or other devices
upon the transverse bands. The slender dividing shafts seem
to have been coloured blue. The leaves of the cresting have
apparently been painted white, but the circular boss in the
middle of each leaf was entirely red." Two pairs of iron rods,
with a ring and swivel hook, serve to suspend it in a steady
position. The other relic is the thirteenth-century crozier which
was recently found in a tomb in the cathedral, and probably
belongs to the time of Savaric, though there is no evidence,
beyond its style, for describing it as his crozier. It was dug up
in a stone coffin in the western burial-ground of the cathedral
in the time of Dean Lukin (1799-1812). It is thus described
in the Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club exhibition
of enamels, June 1897: "A complete crozier, [the staff]
wooden (modern), with enamelled head one foot in length.
Limoges, thirteenth century. The volute is a serpent with
blue scales and serrated crest, enclosing a winged figure of
St. Michael and a dragon studded with turquoises. The knop
is encased in pierced repousse open work formed of dragons,
and the socket ornamented with thirteenth-century foliated
scrolls in these slightly spiral bands, separated by jewelled
dragons whose tails form three rings under the knop." St.
Michael is represented in the act of attacking the dragon
with his spear.
A little Museum has been formed in one of the rooms over
the western cloister. It contains a collection of seals, Mr
Buckle's plans of the cloisters and the Cloister Lady Chapel
excavations, and many other objects of interest.
The principal buildings in connection with the cathedral
are the vicars' close, the bishop's palace, the deanery, the

THE EXTERIOR

65

archdeaconry, and the canons' houses. There are also Beck
ington's fine gates, — the Chain Gate by the vicars' close.

Brown's, or the Dean's Gate, near the deanery; the Penni
less Porch, leading from the Market Place to the cathedral ;
E

66 WELLS CATHEDRAL
and the Bishop's Eye, leading from the Market Place to
the palace.
Most deservedly famous is the unrivalled Vicars' Close,
which contains the houses built by Bishop Ralph and his
successors for the vicars-choral. Passing through the gate,
one sees the two long ranges of quiet and lovely houses,
fronted by their little gardens, with a roadway betwixt them.
Nothing can surpass this arrangement for its peaceful seclusion
and constant charm, not even the square quadrangles and
cloisters of Oxford, and yet, so convenient is it, that no better
model could be chosen should there ever come any general
return to the old collegiate life ; for a settlement, for a model
factory, one can imagine nothing better even now. There
are forty-two houses, twenty-one on either side : each con
sisted originally of two rooms, one above the other, with a
staircase ; for the vicars were single men. Now that the
vicars-choral are married, many of them live in the town,
but all the theological students are lodged here, and there
are always a few rooms to be let to those visitors who are wise
enough to stay in this charming place.
The tall chimneys rise up through the eaves of the little
houses ; octagonal at the top, they are perforated like a
lantern, with two openings on each side. On them are shields
bearing the arms of the see, of Bishop Beckington and his
executors, Swan, Sugar, and Pope, sugar-loaves and swans
abounding in the decoration.
At the farther end of the close is the tiny chapel (finished
by Bubwith, and finally consecrated in 1489, after Beckington
had added the wooden ceiling and the chamber above), where
compline is still said by the theological students. It is
one of the most beautiful things in Wells — a jewel, like
so much of its period — and it has been well decorated in
sgraffitto and colour by Mr Heywood Sumner. An interesting
feature of its exterior is that some of the old Early English
carving was worked in with the masonry of the wall, by way of
decoration, and very effective it is. A passage at the side
leads to the Liberty, where are some of the prebendal houses.
Over the entrance, and leading into the bridge of the Chain
Gate, are the hall and its ofifices, which are approached by a
fine staircase. In the hall is a painting of much interest, which
represents Bishop Ralph seated on his throne, the vicars

THE EXTERIOR 67
kneeling before him ; the petition which he holds runs — Per
vicos positi villae. Pater alme rogamus, Ut simul uniti, te, Dante
domos maneamus ; and the answer, which has the episcopal
seal, is — Vestra petunt merita. Quod sint concessu petita :
Ut maneatis ita, loca fecimus hie stabilita. On the right are
seventeen figures with ruffles, evidently added in Elizabethan
times ; corresponding inscription has also been added — Quas
primus struxit, etc.
There is also a pulpit over the fireplace, which is large,
with good mouldings and an inscription. In vestris preci
habeat" comedatu dom Ricardii Pomroy quern salvet Ihs. Amen.
On the hearth are a pair of fine fire-dogs.
Just outside the entrance to the vicars' close is a beautiful
oriel window, which has been much copied in modern times.
It springs from a corbelled head, from which foliate four
cinquefoiled panels. The window now has only three square-
headed lights, the centre one being large. Under its sills
are rich panels, and it is capped by a slight crenelated cornice
with a boldly-carved drip, from which springs a conical roof
surmounted by a fleur-de-lys.
The beautiful Bishop's Palace was mainly built by
Jocehn, who died in 1242. It consists of three sides of
a quadrangle, the bishop's house being on the east, the chapel
on the south, the kitchen and offices running alongside the
moat on the north : on the west side there was formerly a
gate-tower and a wall having a cloister within which led to
chapel and hall. In addition to these buildings the great
hall, now in ruins — forming, with the walls and outhouses, an
outer court — was built to the south-west of the chapel. The
whole group of buildings stands on a piece of ground, rich
with trees, surrounded by a lovely old wall and moat, the
single approach being by the bridge and the gate-house,
which has Renaissance windows and retains the slit for the
portcullis and the drawbridge-chains. Bishop Ralph of
Shrewsbury constructed the gate-house and fortifications,
which form an irregular pentagon, with a bastion at each
angle, and an extra one in the south-east side. The bastion
in the western angle (on the south of the gate-house) contains
two storeys, of which the lower, called the cow-house or
stock-house, was used as a prison for criminous clerks. The
moat is fed by a stream from St. Andrew's well hard by.

68

WELLS CATHEDRAL

The palace itself is a most interesting example of medieval
architecture, and remains very much in its original condition.
It is oblong in plan, and divided lengthwise by a solid wall,
running through both storeys from end to end, at about one
third of its width ; the long outer chamber formed by this wall
on the ground floor is divided into the entrance hall of three
bays (containing a fireplace, temp. Henry VIII.), and the
passages to staircase and to chapel at either end. The wider
chamber within the wall is lighted by plain lancet windows.

Dawkes &y^ Partridge, Photo.' THE BISHOP'S PAL.'iCE.
and has a row of slender Purbeck pillars down the middle,
which, with the corbels on the wall, carry a groined vault :
this, the "crypt," or undercroft, was probably used as a
storage-room ; it is now the dining-room. To the north of this
hall is a square chamber with a piflar in the centre ; and to
the east of the chamber a small room projects beyond the
ground plan of the building, with a space at one end (probably
a closet) now walled up.
On the first floor the great chamber (68 by 28 feet)
stood over the undercroft, while on its north was the bishop's
private room, both open to the roof, and to the east
of this, his private chapel. The gallery above the entrance
hall was formerly divided into three chambers, the two larger
of which Mr Buckle thinks were used as a lobby and a ward
robe. The windows in the gallery were restored by Mr Ferrey

THE EXTERIOR 69
in 1846, but nothing is new except the marble shafts and bases.
The two windows at the north end of the great chamber are
evidently later additions, as they have fully developed bar-
tracery, while the other windows in the chamber consist of
pairs of trefoil-headed windows with a quatrefoil in plate
tracery above them
The Great Hall, which is now but a beautiful ruin,
was built by Bishop Burnell, who died 1292. It was a
magnificent chamber, 115 feet by 59^, with high traceried
windows. It was divided into nave and aisles by rows
of pillars to carry the roof and the passage at the west
end led between buttery and pantry to the kitchen ; over
these rooms was a large solar, and on the north side a porch
with staircase at the side leading to the solar. Both hall
and palace are well and fully described by Mr Buckle in the
Somerset Proceedings for 1888. Bishop Barlow had the hall
dismantled, employing Sir John Gates for the purpose ; the
walls, however, were left standing until Bishop Law's time,
when they were partly demolished in order to make the ruin
more "picturesque."
The chapel is very similar in style to the hall, and was
built very shortly afterwards 5 it is at present defaced by bad
decoration and fittings. The carving is very fine and varied ;
some of the capitals retain the old stiff-leaf foliage, while in
some the leaves grow freely round the bell in the Decorated
manner. The vaulted ceiling is also an excellent example of
the transitional work of the period. The west window is of
later date, and has been twice restored — once by Bishop
Montague (i6o8-i6), and again in the present century. On the
north side, at some height from the ground, are the indications
of what may have been a gallery used as a private pew.
Bishop Beckington (1443-66) added the northern block of
buildings, now considerably altered, the kitchen and various
offices, le botrye, cellarium, le bakehous, ad lez stues ad nutriendos
pisces, in William of Worcester's words, as well as the gate now
called the Bishop's Eye, aliam portam adintroitum de le palays,
and the parlour (parluram) and guest-chambers adjoining the
kitchen. This block lies very prettily alongside the moat.
Unfortunately the palace, which had so wonderfully escaped
the brutal adaptations of the eighteenth-century architect, was
restored in 1846 by Mr Ferrey, and its west front completely

70 WELLS CATHEDRAL
altered. The upper storey, the porch, the buttresses were all
added by Mr Ferrey ; not to mention the tower at the north
and the turret at the south, and the conservatory. Bishop
Bagot, at whose order the work was done, also rebuilt the
kitchen and offices ; in fact, he did what he could to destroy
the unique character and beauty of a block of buildings
without parallel anywhere.
The Bishop's Barn, which stands in a field near the
palace is remarkable for its length (no ft. by 25 1) and the
number of its buttresses. Simple in character, stately in pro
portions, it is a striking instance of the perfect sense of fitness
which marked the medieval builders : in fact, it is the exact
opposite to what a modern builder would erect if asked to
provide a barn in the Gothic style.
The Deanery, rebuilt by Dean Gunthorpe (1472-98), is
an almost perfect specimen of a fifteenth-century house, in
spite of the modern sash windows and other alterations which
deface it. As at the palace, the principal apartments were
on the first floor; and of these the chief is the hall, an
excellent example of the more comfortable late medieval
arrangement. Two handsome oriel windows with vaults of
fan-tracery are at the upper end, not quite opposite to each
other, where the sideboards used to stand ; and at the
lower end a stone arch carries a small music-gallery, with
three small windows opening to the hall. Under this arch
is the lavatory, a stone niche, in which a small cistern was
suspended, with a drain at the bottom ; so that the diners
could put their hands under the tap of the little cistern as
they passed into dinner.
Over the hall are guest chambers with fine windows ; and
behind the partition at the back of the dais is another chamber
with a large window, which Mr J. H. Parker thought to have
been the chapel.
Fuller description of the various ecclesiastical buildings
can be found in Mr Parker's paper in the Somerset Proceed
ings for 1863.
The Archdeaconry was built in the time of Edward I.,
but the front of the house has been entirely modernised.
The hall is larger than that of the deanery, and occupies the
whole height of the building, having a very fine early fifteenth-
century open timber roof

THE EXTERIOR 71
The Choirmaster's House, at the east end of the cathe
dral, is a fairly perfect example of a fifteenth-century house,
retaining its beautiful porch unspoiled. The roof and upper
part of the windows of the hall remain, but are disguised
and concealed by modern partitions. It is now the residence
of the Principal of the Theological College.
An organist's house once communicated with the singing-
school, which is over the western cloister ; it was much
defaced in the eighteenth century, and entirely removed a
few years ago.
The Canons' Houses, which lie in the Liberty to the
north of the cathedral, have been either entirely rebuilt, or
much spoilt by alterations.
The Schoolhouse is partly of the fourteenth century, with
wings added in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ; it re
tains some features of interest.
Bishop Bubwith's Almshouse is near St. Cuthbert's
Church. It was much spoilt in the fifties : the original plan
was a great hall, with a chapel at the end of it, and cells along
the side for the almsmen. These cells were open at the top
so that there was plenty of fresh air, and if an almsman
became ill or infirm, he could hear the service chanted daily
in the chapel without leaving his bed. At the west end of
the hall is a building of two storeys built by the bishop's
executors, given to the citizens of Wells as a Guildhall, and
used for that purpose till about 1779. Here is preserved a
very fine money chest of the fifteenth century, painted with
a scroll pattern, and resting on a stand inscribed with curious
doggerel of the date 1615.
St. Cuthbert's Church, which, to the scandal of Wells,
is kept continually shut, is thus described by Mr J. H. Parker
in the Builder for 1862 (p. 655) : —
"It was originally a cruciform church of the thirteenth
century with a central tower, and with aisles to the nave ; but
of the church all that remains in the original state is a part
of the north aisle. The central tower has been removed,
the church entirely rebuilt in the fifteenth century. The
pillars and arches of the nave have been rebuilt in the fifteenth
century also, and the pillars lengthened considerably.- The
arches, with their dripstones, preserved and used again on
the taller pillars, and most of ' the capitals have had the

t2 WELLS CATHEDRAL
foliage cut off. The aisle walls, the clerestory, and roof, are
all Late Perpendicular, about the time of Henry VII. ; but
the beautiful west tower is evidently earlier than the clerestory
and roof, and has the mark of the old roof on the east side
of it, coming below the present clerestory. This fine tower,
which is certainly one of the finest of its class, and which
Mr Freeman considers, I believe, to rank only second to one
other [Wrington], is said to have been built in the time of
Bishop Bubwith, or about 1430; and this appears to me
probable. The character of the work is rather Early Per
pendicular, and the groined vault under the belfry appears
to be an imitation of the Decorated vault of the cathedral."

CHAPTER III

THE INTERIOR

The earlier architecture of Wells Cathedral presents so many
puzzles, that the most skilled experts have differed widely both
from each other, and, as we know now, from the truth. There
are four distinct varieties of Early English work, covering a
period of about a century from the time of Bishop Reginald,
whose episcopate began in ii 74 ; and yet, until Mr Bennett
deciphered the old charters, which have at length settled the
problem, all the work was attributed to Jocelin, for nothing was
known of Reginald's building, and some of the best judges
were even convinced that the west front was built before the
nave. The difficulty was mainly caused by the unusual char
acter of the architecture of the nave; "unlike that of any
ordinary English building, and belonging to a style on the whole
fifty years earlier " than the west front, as Professor Willis said,
who gave it a name of its own, and called it the Somerset style.
Thus the theory came to be that two bodies of masons had
been employed — an ordinary English company for the front, and
a local Somerset company for the nave, transepts and choir, who
worked in a local variation of the prevalent Early English style.
In this way, an attempt was made to overcome the difficulty of
attributing to Jocelin work which Mr Willis had himself pro
nounced to be " only a little removed from the early Norman
style." Mr Freeman, too, had allowed that the north porch
might be earlier than Jocelin ; and, long before, Britton had
said that there would be little hesitation in ascribing the church
to the transitional period of Henry II. (1154-89) on architec
tural evidence, were it not for Godwin's assertion, that Jocelin
had entirely pulled down the old church and built a
fresh one.
But now we have got behind Godwin, and have found from
contemporary evidence that Bishop Reginald commenced the
73

74 WELLS CATHEDRAL
present church. Thus we are able to divide the Early English
work into no less than four periods, (i) The three western
arches of the choir, with the four western bays of its aisles, the
transepts, and the four eastern bays of the nave, which are
Reginald's work (1174-1191), and so early as to be still in a
state of transition from the Norman. It is a unique example
of transitional building, and Willis calls it "an improved
Norman, worked with considerable lightness and richness, but
distinguished from the Early English by greater massiveness
and severity." The characteristics of this late twelfth-century
work are bold round mouldings, square abaci, capitals, some
with traces of the classical volute, others interwoven with fanci
ful imagery that reminds us of the Norman work of Glaston
bury ; while in the north porch, which must be the earliest of
all, we even find the zig-zag Norman moulding. (2) The rest
of the nave, which was finished in Jocelin's time — that is to say,
in the first half of the thirteenth century — preserves the main
characteristics of the earlier work, though the flowing sculptured
foliage becomes more naturalistic, and lacks the quaint inter
mingling of figure subjects. (3) The west front, which is
Jocelin's work, and alone can claim to be of pure Early English
style. (4) The chapter-house crypt, which is so late as to be
almost Transitional, though, curiously enough, it contains the
characteristic Early English dog-tooth moulding which is found
nowhere else except in the west window. From this, we reach
the Early Decorated of the staircase, the full Decorated of the
chapter-house itself, the later Decorated of the Lady Chapel,
the transitional Decorated of the presbytery, and the full Perpen
dicular of the western towers.
Much of the masonry in the transepts, choir, choir aisles, and
even in the eastern transepts, bears the peculiar diagonal lines
which are the marks of Norman tooling. This does not, of
course, prove that any part of Bishop Robert's church is'
standing, for medieval builders were notoriously economical in
using up old masonry, but it does show that there are more
remains of his work in the building than was generally sup
posed. A characteristic feature in this Norman tooling is that
if a rule be laid along its lines, they will be found to be very
slightly curved, a feature which is due to the fact that Norman
masons dressed their stones with the broad curved blade of an

Dawkes d^ Partridge, Photo.]

THE NAVE.

THE INTERIOR 77
The plan of the church is remarkably complete, symmetrical,
and well-proportioned. Nave, transepts, choir, each flanked
with its aisles, combine to form with the Lady Chapel and
chapter-house a cathedral church which, though not of the first
magnitude, is the most complete and typical in England. The
ground plan itself, as set out in all technical severity on page 1 60,
possesses an unusual attraction for the eye. It is free both
from multilation and excrescences ; and yet all the picturesque
external grouping, and internal mystery, which the afterthoughts
of Gothic architects so often lend to a building, are secured, in
the case of Wells, by the carefully-placed chapter-house and
the beautiful arrangement of the Lady Chapel. The transepts
of the choir are very happily carried far enough east to be
internally subordinate to this chapel, which arrangement, with
the apsidal form of the chapel itself, adds much to the beautiful
proportions of the church. A third transept is given to the
west end of the nave by the two towers.
The length of Wells Cathedral from east to west is 383 feet
within the walls, and 415 without. The length of the nave
is 192 feet, its breadth 82 feet, and its height 67 feet. The
length of the choir is 117 feet, and its height 73 feet. The
transepts are 131 feet within and 150 feet without.
The Nave. — The general effect of the nave is that of length
rather than height, and this is mainly due to the continuous
arcade of the triforium which leads the eye from end to end of
the building instead of from floor to roof If this be com
pared with the older work in the transepts, it will be seen at
once by how simple a device this radical change in the effect
has been produced. Instead of being carried down right across
the triforium, as in the transepts, the triple vaulting shafts are
cut off above the arcade so as to be little more than corbels,
and the space thus gained is used to give one additional open
ing to each bay of the triforium. In the transepts the triforium
is composed of pairs of lancet arches separated by vaulting
shafts, the triforium of each bay being a distinct composition
over its pier arch ; but by the time the architect had come
to the nave, a new idea had occurred to him, and he made the
triforium in one continuous arcade, unbroken from east to
west, evidently with the deliberate intention of producing a
horizontal rather than a vertical effect. The arrangement has
undoubtedly a character of its own, and " there is no nave in

78 WELLS CATHEDRAL
which the eye is so irresistibly carried eastward as in that of
Wells." In spite of this method of securing an effect of length, the
builders managed to make the most of the small height of their
church. The manner in which this was done forms an
interesting example of the subtle feeling of proportion which
early architects possessed. The clerestory was made unusually
lofty, and the comparative lowness of the triforium both adds
to the soaring effect and prevents the horizontal appearance
being overmastering. This is increased by the bold vaulting
of the ceiling, and the way in which the lantern arches fit into
the vault.
But, homogeneous as the nave appears, a little examination
will clearly reveal the break which marks the separation
between the late twelfth-century work of Reginald de Bohun
and the thirteenth-century continuation of Jocelin. The
earlier work, as we have seen, consisted of the four eastern
bays, which, with the present ritual choir and transepts, formed
Reginald's church ; and, as a matter of fact, at the fifth bay
(the next bay westward of the north porch) the marks of change
are so evident that all writers upon the cathedral have based
their theories upon it. The earlier masonry in the spandrels
on the east of this point consists of small stones indifferently
set : the later masonry is made up of larger blocks more
carefully laid together ; in the earlier part there are small
. heads at the angles of the pier arches, in the later there are
none, while the small heads in the angles of the earlier
triforium arcade give place to larger heads in the later; the
tympana, which fill the heads of the lancets in this arcade, also
are mainly ornamented in the earlier part with grotesque
beasts, while in the later they contain foliage, with two
exceptions. Again, the medallions which decorate the spaces
above the triforium are sunk in the earlier masonry, but,
in the later, they are flush with the surface and not so deeply
carved. Even more noticeable is the difference in the capitals,
those of the western bays being lighter, freer, and more under
cut, though less interesting and hardly as beautiful as those of
the earlier part. With the exception of these differences,
however, which are doubtless due to the freedom enjoyed
by medieval workmen, the original design of the nave was
faithfully adhered to, the square abaci, even, being retained,

THE INTERIOR

79

though the circular abacus had become a leading characteristic
of the true Early English of Jocelin's period. Certainly it is
an unusual instance of an architect deliberately setting himself
to complete the works of an earlier period in faithful accord
ance with the original plan ; and we may well be grateful to
him for his modesty.
All the carving is most interesting and beautiful : the caps
and corbels of the vaulting - shafts ; the litde heads at the

T. W. Phillifs, Plioto.]
A CAPITAL— THE FRUIT-STEALER'S PUNISHMENT.
angles of the arches, which are vivid sketches of every type of
contemporary character ; and the carvings in the tympana,
above referred to, which are best in the seventh, eighth, and
ninth bays (counting from the west end), those on the north
excelling in design and execution, while those on the south
are more grotesque. But the capitals of the piers are the
best of all, and the most hurried visitor should spare some
time for the study of these remarkable specimens of sculpture,
vigorous and life-like, yet always subordinated to their archi
tectural purpose. Those in the transepts are perhaps the best
(p. 89), but the following in the nave should not be missed : —

So WELLS CATHEDRAL
North Side, sixth Pier. — (By north porch) Birds pluming
their wings : Beast licking himself : Ram : Bird with human
head, holding knife (?).
Eighth Pier. — Fox stealing goose, peasant following with
stick : Birds pruning their feathers : (Within Bubwith's chapel)
Human monster with fish's tail, holding a fish : Bird holding
frog in his beak, which is extremely long and delicate.
Ninth Pier. — Pedlar carrying his pack on his shoulders,
a string of large beads in one hand.
Toothless monster, with hands on knees.
South side, seventh Pier. — Birds with human heads, one
wearing a mitre.
Eighth Pier. — Peasant, with club, seized by a lion : Bird
with curious foliated tail : (Within St. Edmund's chapel)
Owl : Peasant with mallet (?).
The lofty clerestory windows are divided into two lights by
Perpendicular tracery of late fourteenth or early fifteenth
century date, which extends to the level of the passage, the
lower part being filled with masonry. The windows were not,
however, altered in shape when the tracery was inserted. In
the tracery are very slight traces of the old glass. .
The triforium passage is capacious enough to form a large
tunnel, which gives a good effect to its lancet openings. The
small iron rings, which are prominent enough to be rather
tiresome to the eye, were recently inserted for the use of
those engaged in cleaning the walls. Within the passage
additional arches may be seen, inserted to strengthen the
arcade at the commencement of the later work and in other
places. The groined ceiling has carved bosses at the intersection
of its ribs. The red pattern is a restoration of the old design
which was found on the removal of the whitewash, but the
restorer seems to have missed the right tints.
There is a music-gallery in the clerestory of the sixth bay
on the south side; it is composed of three panels with
quatrefoils containing plain shields, and is finished with an
embattled cornice. Another gallery, perhaps for an organ,
must have been supported by the two noticeable brackets on
the spandrels of the fourth bay of the same side. One may
conjecture that it was of wood, and was reached from the
triforium. The brackets are carved in the shape of very large

THE INTERIOR 81
heads of a bishop and a king, both supported by smaller
heads, and of an extremely benevolent expression. The
hair of the king has that curious formal twist with which we
are familiar on playing-cards. As some of the small heads
in the chapter-house have the same style of hair, these two
brackets probably belong to the end of the thirteenth century.
Sir John Harrington in the Nugae Antiqttae (ii. 148) says
of these two heads that " the old men of Wells had a tradi-

T. W. Phillips, Photo.] A CAPITAL— TOOTHACHE.
tion, that, when there should be such a king and such a
bishop, then the church should be in danger of ruin." At
the time of the Reformation it was noticed that the head
of the king bore a certain resemblance to Henry VIII. , and
that the king held in his hands a child falling, who, it was
said, could be none other than Edward VI. The peculiarity
of the bishop's figure is that he has women and children
about him. "This fruitful bishop, they affirmed, was Dr
Barlow (p. 156), the first married bishop of Wells, and per
haps of England. This talk being rife in Wells in Queen
Mary's time, made him rather affect Chichester at his return
than Wells, where not only the things that were ruined but
F

82

WELLS CATHEDRAL

those that remained, served for records and remembrances of
his sacrilege."
The west end of the nave is covered in its lower portion by
an arcade of five arches with Purbeck shafts, the middle one
being wider than the rest, to contain the two smaller arches
of the doorway. The three lancet windows were re-modelled
in Perpendicular times by the insertion of the triple shafts,
which have the casement mouldings and angular caps of the
period ; but the dog-tooth moulding of the arches, the
medallions in the spandrels, and the little corbel heads of the
Early English work remain. A Perpendicular parapet along
the sill of the window marks the gallery which, pierced through
the splays, carries the triforium passage round the end of the

SPECIMENS OF CAPITALS.

nave. A string course runs along the bottom of this gallery
and forms the bases of the triple shafts ; the bases are sup
ported on corbels which die off upon the sloping wall below.
This wall conceals a curious gallery, the purpose of which is
not known; it is entered by steps from the triforium, and
lighted by round openings which can be seen in the central
quatrefoils of the west front ; when these quatrefoils were
filled with sculpture it would have been difificult to detect the
existence of the dark gallery.
Two small transepts at the west end of the nave are formed
by the western towers, which project in this church beyond the
aisles. These transepts are connected with the aisles by an
arch, the lower part of which is closed by wooden doors.
That on the north was used as a chapel of the Holy Cross,

THE INTERIOR

83

and of late years as the consistory court ; it is now the choir
boys' vestry ; that on the south served as a porch in the days
when the usual entrance to the church was by the Early
English doorway which leads into it from the cloister ; it is
now appropriated to the bell-ringers. They are both of
strikingly different style to the rest of the interior, as they
were built in pure Early English style, at the same time as the
west front, of which the towers form, of course, an integral
part. Their shafts are of blue lias, the capitals richly carved ;
their groined vaults have a circular opening to admit to the
upper storey of the tower, which has its corbels ornamented

A CAPITAL.

with foliage, although they cannot be seen. Over the doorway
in the south chapel an arcade is curiously fitted into the
available space beneath the vault.
The Aisles of the Nave (see p. 19) are of the same
character as the nave itself, the later part having been resumed
at about the same time, and at the same place. Among the
capitals the foUowing in the north aisle may be specially
mentioned : —
Fifth Shaft. — Peasants carrying sheep, etc., a dog in the midst.
Ninth Shaft. — Man in rough coat, which falls before and
behind rather like a chasuble, carrying foliage on his back. A
very good figure.

84

WELLS CATHEDRAL

Tettth Shaft. — (By arch of vestry) Man carrying what seems
to be a hod of mortar and a mason's mallet.
Opposite side of arch, at end of the string course : Peasant in
hood carrying a staff. On the caps opposite are two heads
with tongues on their teeth (see p. 92).
The windows, both of these aisles and those of the transepts,
were filled with Perpendicular tracery at about the same time
as the clerestory windows. The date of this addition must
have been before Bishop's Bubwith's time, for the library which
that prelate built over the cloister blocks the south window of
the west aisle of the south transept. A stone bench runs
along all the aisles.
Glass of the Nave, Transepts, and Aisles.— Most of
the glass of the west window was collected abroad, during his

SPECIMENS OF CAPITALS.
exile, by Bishop Creyghton, while he was yet dean (1660-70).
The main part of it is devoted to the life and death of St.
John Baptist, and is of excellent early sixteenth-century work,
for under the fantastic figure of the executioner is the in
scription Sancti Johannis Decollatio 1507. The two other
lights containing the large figures of King Ina and Bishop
Ralph are, however, of later date, and to judge by their
costume they should belong to Creyghton's own time ; more
over, on the southern one are Creyghton's arms. Apparently
the compositions at the extreme top and bottom of the middle
light are much later ; a little handbook on the cathedral by Mr
John Davies, the verger in 18 14, states thai; the then dean and
chapter re-arranged and restored the window in 1813; these
additions must belong to that time, and according to him they

THE INTERIOR

8S

were brought from Rouen. Their ugly reds and blues certainly
do not blend with the earlier glass, as do the figures of Ina
and Ralph, but considerably mar the mellow and delicate

Dawkes &> Partridge, Photo.]
VIEW ACROSS NAVE, SHEWING SUGAR'S AND
BUBWITH'S CHAPELS.
effect of the whole. There are only a few slight fragments of
old glass in the other windows. There are also two modern
windows at the west end of the aisles.
Bishop Bubwith's Chantry Chapel. — Two chantry

86 WELLS CATHEDRAL
chapels stand opposite each other under the ninth pier-arches
of the nave. They are alike in general characteristics, though
there is an interval of sixty years between them. The chantry
of Bishop Bubwith (ob. 1424), who built the north-west tower,
is formed by a hexagonal screen between the piers, the three
eastern sides being filled with a reredos that gives the chapel
a square appearance within. The screen is composed of the
most light and elaborate tracery, its corners surmounted by
a crest ; it is open above, but has a rather coarsely-carved
canopy over where the altar stood. Doorways, whose jambs
are too delicately carved to have ever carried doors, give free
access and a clear view of the interior from either side.
Altogether it was an ideal place for votive Celebrations, when
but few worshippers were present. The niches over the altar
have been hacked level with the wall, and the little pillar
piscina is also defaced. The triple shafts of the pier at the
western end are corbelled off, the corbel being carved with
Bubwith's arms (argent, a fess engrailed sable between twelve
holly leaves vert, 4, 4, 4, and 4, arranged in quadrangles)
impaled with those of the see. The altar here was formerly
dedicated to St. Saviour.
Sugar's Chantry. — In the ninth bay of the nave, on the
south side, is the chantry of Treasurer Hugh Sugar. Before
its erection, the altar of St. Edmund of Canterbury, who was
canonised in 1246, stood here; and perhaps, when it comes
to be used again, it will be maintained in honour of that most
attractive scholar saint. Speaking of these chantries, vdiich
were endowed in such profusion in the later Middle Ages,
Canon Church (Somerset Proceedings, 1888, ii. 103) says:
" The belief in the communion of saints, living and dead, and
the desire for continued remembrance after death, and for the
intercessions of the living, led practically to the endowment of
chantries and obits, whereby not only was the church enriched,
and the services of many priests provided for, but also attach
ment to the church of their fathers was greatly strengthened,
as being the common home of the dead and the living."
That attachment, one would think, is hardly likely to be
revived by this beautiful chapel and its fellow being put
to base uses. At present it serves as a kind of booking-
office, where visitors deposit their sixpences and sign their
names, while the other is stored with hassocks, and becomes

THE INTERIOR 87
the resting-place of any brooms, pails, and dustpans that are
in use.
St. Edmund's (or Sugar's) chapel is hexagonal, like that of
Bishop Bubwith, but its tracery, frieze, and reredos are more
elaborate. The canopy over the altar is vaulted with lace-like
fan-tracery. Five niches, now empty of their figures, form the
reredos ; their sumptuous pedestals and canopies are in excellent
condition. Attached to the frieze without, on either side^ are
six demi-angels, with delicate wings and extremely curly hair,
bearing shields, with representations of the Five Wounds, the
Lily of the Annunciation, between angels' wings ; the arms of
the see (a plain saltire surmounting a pastoral staff in pale
between two keys addorsed, the bows interlaced on the dexter,
and a sword erect on the sinister) ; the arms of Glastonbury
Abbey (a cross flory, in dexter chief a demi-virgin with child
proper), the arms of the vicars (a saltire), the initials H. S.,
and Sugar's arms, originally a "canting coat," three sugar-
loaves, and in chief a doctor's cap. Sugar's initials and arms
also occur under the canopy. It is the fashion to consider
this chapel inferior to its fellow, merely because it is later in
date, but a little impartial study will show that it is much the
better of the two. The tracery, though less uncommon, is.
more graceful, that over the doorway especially being far better .
contrived ; the cornice is better proportioned, and is not spoilt
by the untidy trail of foliage which runs round that of Bubwith's
chapel ; the canopy, too, fits in with the curve of the tracery,
while that of the others projects clumsily across it.
The Pulpit. — From the west end of this chapel steps lead
into the stone pulpit which adjoins it. This pulpit was built
in Henry VIII. 's reign, by Bishop Knight, who died in 1547.
It is a low, but well-proportioned, structure, resting on a
basement, and fronted with panelled pilasters ; it is surmounted
by an entablature. In front are the bishop's curious arms,
which occur more distinctly in the glass of the north choir
aisle — Per fess, in chief a demi-eagle with two heads and sans
wings issuing from a demi-rose conjoined to a demi-sun in
splendour in base. On the frieze is the inscription — preache .
thov . the . u'orde . be . fervent . in . season . and . ovt . of .
season . reprove . rebvke . exhorte . w* . all . longe . svfferyng .
6^ . doctryne . 2 . Timo. A board along the top, covered with
red baize, impairs its beauty at present.

WELLS CATHEDRAL

The Lectern, which stands near, is composed of a massive
double desk, surmounted by ornamental work, containing the
arms of the see. It rests upon a ball and turned stem and base,
and is entirely of brass. Bishop Creyghton, who had it made
when he was yet dean, inscribed it on both desks with his
arms and this legend : — Dr. Ro¥- Creyghton upon his returne
from fifteen years Exile, w^''

c SoveraigTie Lord Kinge Charles

Dawkes &• Partridge, Photo.]
SUGAR'S CHAPEL— THE LECTERN AND PULPIT.
y 2''- made Deane of wells, in y' yeare 1660, gave this Brazen
Deske, w"' Gods holy worde thereon to the saide Cathedrall
Church. The Bible referred to still rests upon it, bearing the
same date; it is bound up with the Prayer Book, and con
tains initial letters and a frontispiece, but it stops at the
book of Job.
Opposite the lectern are two sixteenth - century panelled
wooden stalls, with round finials, all bearing the same device
on both sides— a Tudor rose with I.H.S. in the centre, and the

THE INTERIOR 89
letters tn.d.l.i.i. (1552) on the five petals. These excellent
examples of simple and effective woodwork were found amongst
some lumber in 1846, and now form part of the temporary
choir stalls that are used for the nave services.
On the south- side of Bubwith's chapel, and partly covered by
it, is a slab, 10 ft. long, covering the grave of Bishop HaseLshaw,
with the inscription, Walterus de Haselshaw Ep. 1308. On
the west of Sugar's chapel, another slab bears the inscription,
Radulphus Erghum Ep. 1401. In a slab near the entrance to
the choir there is the matrix for a brass of a lady, with mitred
head-dress of the period, c. 1460, beneath a canopy. The
style suggests that it may belong to Lady Lisle, whose tomb
possibly stood here.
The Transepts are both of the same architectural char
acter, and were evidently built before the nave. They have
less ornament, the medallions and the carved tympana of the
nave being alike absent, although there are the same small
heads at the angles of the pier arches. The triforium, too, is
different ; each bay consists of two large openings, devoid of
ornament, instead of three narrower ones, and is separated
from the next bay by the vaulting-shaft which reaches down to
the string-course of the pier arch (see p. 77). Some of the
carved work, however, of the capitals and corbels is of a later
date than that of the nave, which may be due to the capitals
having been left uncut till after the nave was finished, or to
damage done by the faD of the tholus in 1248. Apparently
the corbels of the vaulting shafts are later than those of the
nave, they are certainly more elaborate. Of the capitals those
on the west side of both transepts are of one style, and abound
in representations of the toothache. The capitals on the east
side are different from those on the west of the third pier on
this side of the south transept, and that is of a style that
suggests the Decorated period. Those on the west are cer
tainly the best, and some of the following are the finest in the
church, and perhaps in England : —
North Transept, first Pier. — (Inside the Priest Vicars'
vestry) A prophet (?) with scroll on which there is no name :
Man carrying goose. (Outside) Head with tongue on teeth.
Second Pier. — Aaron, writing his name on a scroll : Moses
with the tajjles of stone.
Third Pier. — Woman with a bandage across her face.

9°

WELLS CATHEDRAL

Above this cap the corbel consists of a seated figure, naked,
with distorted mouth and an agonised expression.
South Transept, second Pier (from the south end). —

SECTION OF N. TRANSEPT^AND ELEVATION OF S. TRANSEPT.
Two men are stealing grapes, one holds the basket full, the
other plucks grapes, holding a knife in his other hand : The
farmers in pursuit, one carries a spade and the other a pitch-

THE INTERIOR 91
fork : The man with the fork, a vigorous figure, catches one
thief : The man with the spade hits the other (whose face is
most woe-begone) on the head (illust. p. 79).
Third Pier. — Woman pulling thorn out of her foot : Man
with one eye, finger in his mouth : Baboon head : Cobbler ;
this figure shows very plainly the method of shoemaking at this
time ; the cobbler, in his apron, sits with the shoe on one knee,
his strap passes over the knee and round the other foot, his
foot is turned over so as to present the side and not the sole to
the strap : Woman's head with long hair.
Fourth Pier. — Head perfectly hairless : " Elias P." (the
prophet) with hand on cheek as if he too has the toothache :
Head in hood, with tongue on the one remaining tooth.
It may be well here to say a word about the general classifi
cation of these earlier capitals, since their date is a matter of
great architectural interest. I would venture to divide them
into five groups —
I. Those of the three western bays of the choir : simple
carved foliage of distinctly Norman character, as in the north
porch: these belong to the time of Reginald (1174-1191).
2. The four eastern bays of the nave and its aisles. Some
of these may belong to the first period, though later than the
choir : they are more advanced in the foliage, and teem with
grotesque birds and beasts. Some, however, of the caps in these
bays are of quite different character (p. 80) ; they contain
genre subjects of perfectly naturalistic treatment, very different
to the St. Edmund of the north porch capital, but exactly
similar to the figure caps of the transepts. They must there
fore have been carved later than the death of Saint William
Bytton. 3. The western bays of the nave. These, which are of
much less interest, belong to the period of Jocelin's reconstruc
tion (1220-1242). They are characteristic examples of rich
stiff-leaf foliage, freer than that of the earlier work, but much
less varied and without either human figures or grotesques.
4. On the eastern range of transept piers. These would
seem also to come within Jocelin's period, with the exception
of the third pier of the south transept.
5. On the western range of transept piers (p. 89), with
which must be classed those later caps already referred to
in the nave under group 2. Their date is settled by the

92

WELLS CATHEDRAL

fact that they abound in unmistakable representations of
the toothache. Now Saint William Bytton died in 1274,
and his tomb became immediately famous for cures of
this malady. In 1286 the chapter decided to repair the
old work, no doubt because the offerings at his tomb had
brought money to the church ; this part of the church had
been damaged ever since the fall of the tholus in 1248.

r. W. Phillifs, Photo.]

CAPITALS IN TRANSEPT.

The caps must therefore have been carved during the
episcopate of Burnell (1275-1292). Mr Irvine, indeed,
suggests that the figure of the woman taking a thorn (" bur ")
from her foot may contain a reference to Bishop Burnell.
The undercroft passage, with its curious corbels and bosses,
was probably also a part of the old work then completed,
as it contains one "toothache" head. Although the intro
duction of such finished figure - subjects into the capitals
suggests this lateness of date, they are still completely Early

Dawkes &= Partridge.^ Photo.}
THE SOUTH TRANSEPT FROM NORTH SIDE OF NAVE.

THE INTERIOR

95

English in style, and a great gulf is fixed between them
and the Decorated caps of the chapter-house begun by
Burnell's successor, William de Marchia (1293-1302).
The Font is of peculiar interest as the one surviving
relic of Bishop Robert's Norman church. Whether it also
stood in the still earlier Saxon church is still an open
question : it is as likely
to be of pre-Norman as
of Norman date, and
the fact that whatever
ornament there may have
been in the spandrels of
its shallow arcades has
been hacked off, makes
conjecture unsafe. Its
unusual position in the
south transept may be
due to the Bishop Giso's
quasi -conventual build
ings on the south of the
church, which would
have made this transept
the most common en
trance to the cathedral
at the time of the Con
quest. A Jacobean
cover rests upon the
font, and with it forms
a charming combination
of pre-Gothic and post-
Gothic Romanesque
design. At the south end of
the south transept is
the tomb of Bishop de
Marchia (ob. 1302). The effigy lies in a recess, and is
covered with a canopy of three bays, the ogival arches,
finished in sumptuous crockets and finials, painted red
and gold, the spandrels being alternately green and red,
powdered with a little pattern, the cusps and mouldings
scarlet and crimson and green and gold, with a dark colour

THE FONT.
(Drawn by W. Heywood.)

96 WELLS CATHEDRAL
in the shadows. The effigy of the bishop is one of the best
in the cathedral, but even more lovely are the three little
figures so charmingly supported on foliage at the back of
the tomb — two angels and a bishop between them. The
heads of these three figures have been wickedly destroyed,
but parts of the chains of the angels' censers remain. Of
the two beautiful angels which hold the cushion the heads
fortunately remain. Along the plinth of the tomb are six heads
which are quite unique in their treatment ; three are bearded
(one of these is bald) ; one is shaven, tonsured, and turned
half round in a strangely naturalistic manner; another is
also shaven, and the remaining head is that of a woman in
a veil. Two large faces are carved on the east and ¦ft'est
ends of the tomb, both with long wavy hair — one of a woman,
the other with a wavy beard. The central boss of the
vaulting is carved with five roses, which are coloured green,
their foliage, like all the foliage in this tomb, being gilt on
a red ground with the red edges showing. The little angels
at the back had gilded robes with red lining, and blue
wings; the little bishop wore a red chasuble with green
(or blue) dalmatic, and red tunicle over his white alb; the
lappets of his mitre, which have survived, were red, and
¦traces of dark blue are on his shoes : there seem to have
been patterns on the various vestments, and the colours can
still be seen where their sleeves overlapped. Modern
lettering has been cut across the back of the tomb and
coloured, by way of contrast to the ancient work.
Under the battlemented cornice of the curtain-wall to
the west a row of heads is painted in fresco on a red ground,
which seems to be part of the same scheme with the curious
heads on the plinth of de Marchia's tomb : one of these,
a woman in a dark-coloured hood, is especially distinct.
No doubt the whole wall was originally painted. The
sill of the window over the tomb seems to have been used
for some special purpose : there is a passage cut through
the splay of the window, through which the sill may be
reached, which is not the case with the corresponding window
of the north transept. The passage is reached from a stair
case concealed behind the curtain-wall, which is reached
by an ogee-headed doorway (with cusps in the head, finial,
and two small heads to its very beautiful mouldings). This

THE INTERIOR 97
staircase also leads to a chamber on the level of the passage,
but on the west side : the interior of the chamber can be
seen from the ground, as its old wooden door is kept open.
It is supposed by some to have been a watching chamber
in connection with the tomb. There can, indeed, be little
doubt that these arrangements had something to do with
de Marchia's tomb, or that the ornamented doorway in the
curtain wall of the same date as the tomb, together with
the frescoes on the wall, were connected with the strong
efforts that were made at this time for his canonisation.
Perhaps the sill was used for the display of his relics, and
the chamber was the ordinary resting-place of the reliquary,
for which purpose the door and the absence of windows
would have fitted it.
Next to de Marchia's tomb on the other side, the monument
of Joan Viscountess Lisle (ob. 1463) gives a good illustration
of the change of architecture in a hundred and fifty years.
The crockets are less free, and straight lines and square
members abound ; the fine ogee curve of its single arch
is weakened by the rather weedy cusps, its shafts have
become tiny mouldings, and their capitals mere knops. It
is coloured, too, all over, in green and red and yellow,
but heavily in comparison with its neighbour. The colour
has been unusually well preserved, owing to the fact that
the tomb was plastered over, and not discovered till 1809.
There is no effigy, but a brass of apparently recent date
bears this inscription : — Hie jacet Joanna Vicecomitilla de
lisle una filiarum et haeredum Thomae Chedder, armiger
quae fuit uxor Joannis Vicecomitis de Lisle, filii et haeredis
Joannis Comitis Salopia et Margaretce ux ejus unius filiarum
et haeredum Ricardi comitis Warwici et Elizabethae uxoris
ejus filice et haeredis Thomce de Berkley militis, domini de
Berkeley, quce obiit xv"'" die mensis Julii Aiih D' mcccclx/ii.
Lady Lisle's husband was killed at the battle of Chastillon
(1453), when he was serving under his father, the famous
Earl of Shrewsbury. The painted designs above the three
niches should be noticed, and also those of the moulding
and fleurs-de-lys at the side. The monument was evidently
used as a chantry chapel ; but it did not originally stand
here. The brass by the north side of the screen (p. 89)
may mark the site. G

98 WELLS CATHEDRAL
The eastern aisles of the transepts are divided off into
chapels by two Perpendicular stone screens, that of the south
transept having a doorway in it for each chapel. These
chapels are thus dedicated, beginning from the south — St.
Martin, St. Calixtus, St. David, Holy Cross. From the last-
named chapel the chapter-house is reached through an Early
English doorway, and a similar doorway (now partly blocked
by Biconyll's tomb) led from St. Martin's to a small building,
supposed to have been a vestry, which once stood outside.
In the south transept there are also — a small door to the tower,
a small door with ogee head (p. 96), a rather larger doorway
with modern lintel leading to the library (two shafts just above
this door have been cut off, and faces very roughly cut on
their extremities by way of corbel), and the large doorway
leading to the cloister. The principal windows belong to the
original work, having been merely filled with Perpendicular
tracery. The windows of the south-east aisle contain Decorated
tracery, but the tracery of the north-east aisle is not good.
The western aisle of the south transept is open ; that of the
north transept is cut off by a Perpendicular stone screen, which
is solid in the southern bay, and through carved in the
northern. The latter is, however, boarded up, and used as
the vestry of the priest-vicars, the other being the vestry of the
vicars-choral. From the priest-vicars' vestry a door leads into
a small chamber now used for the water supply, and over the
doorway there is a small and pretty figure of a woman under
a little niche.
There are a very few fragments of Early Perpendicular glass
in some of the upper lights of the nave and transept windows.
There are also two modern windows at the west end of the
nave, and one in the south transept, of which I have been
unable to discover the actual designers' names.
Transept Chapels. — St. Martin's, where the obits of
Savaric and Jocelin were celebrated, is separated by a solid
Perpendicular screen from the adjoining chapel of St. Calixtus.
It is now used as the canons' vestry. Partly blocking the
old Early English doorway is the tomb of Biconyll, who was
chancellor in 1454. His will, with a good deal of information
about him, is given in the Somerset Proceedings for 1894, by Mr
A. S. Bicknell, a descendant. The name was originally Byken-
hulle (A.S. for Beacon Hill), and has been spelt in forty-seven

THE INTERIOR 99
different ways. His effigy lies on the tomb, dressed in cassock,
long surplice, and cappa nigra or choral cope. The ends of
the almuce can be seen in the opening of the cope, and its
hood hangs over the shoulders.
St. Calixtus' chapel is enclosed on the side of the choir
aisle by part of the beautiful ironwork from Beckington's
tomb. The doors of this and St. Martin's chapel are also
made from the same iron screen. Within the chapel, and
near the screen, in strange contrast to it, stands one of those
indescribable stoves which disfigure the church, its chimney,
as usual, driven through the vault. The east end of the chapel
is occupied by the canopy which formed part of Bishop
Beckington's tomb till the restoration of 1850, when it was,
by an inexcusable act of vandalism, taken down and fixed up
in this place (p. 125). This canopy did not cover the tomb,
but stood at its foot so as to form the eastern part of a chantry
chapel, the tomb being on its south side and the iron screen
enclosing it where it jutted into the choir on the north side.
It will be noticed that its northern angle was sloped off so as
not to present an awkward corner on the side of the choir.
The reredos, for such it really is, is a most elaborate and
charming piece of work; "pretty" is perhaps the word that
describes it best, if "pretty" be taken in its very best sense.
Here there is nothing of the suave grace of de Marchia's
tomb, nothing of the vigour and truth of the transept capitals,
nothing of the noble delicacy of the north porch, which was
a delicacy of intellect, while this is a delicacy of execution.
It is certainly decadent ; even by the side of Sugar's chapel it
is over-refined and a thought effeminate, but, with the colour
that still covers it fresh and bright, it must have had all the
fascination of a splendid piece of jewellery, where profusion of
ornament is more desired than structural grace. The cornice
is particularly rich with a finely-carved vine ornament, and
with two angels, their long outstretched wings minutely
feathered, who hear shields having representations of the
sacred wounds. The tabernacle work behind the altar is gone,
like the altar itself, with the exception of the small niches
which formed the sides of the central composition, but the
little canopy of the central niche remains to give us a slight
idea of its workmanship. The short wings of the reredos have
panels and traceried openings, and, on the south, a piscina

zoo WELLS CATHEDRAL
which looks almost too tiny to be real. The top has a toy
like vault of fan-tracery with little pendants.
On the south side of St. Calixtus' chapel is Dean Husse's
alabaster tomb (ob. 1305), which bears some of the best
carved work in the cathedral. The effigy itself is good : it
represents the Dean clad in the same choir vestments as the
figures on the panels below. These panels should on no
account be missed. The first on the left represents the
Annunciation with a grace that is not less delightful for the
strain of exaggeration which pervades it. The Blessed Virgin
(see illustration on p. 101), a lovely figure in long, close-fitting
kirtle and mantle thrown gracefully over her shoulders, turns
round from the desk at which she is kneeling, and throws out
her arms with a quaint gesture of surprise ; her crown and
nimbus are both of enormous size. A very small Gabriel
dashes down from the top corner, bearing a scroll which takes
up the whole of the panel ; he is preceded by a Dove with
very long rays. The next three panels (passing over these
with shields) contain three figures of clergy, two of which hold
books, and all their short staves. They wear the cassock, long
surplice, and a long, graceful choral cope, somewhat like the
modern academic gown in shape, the rounded ends of the
hooded almuce reach to the knee and are held at the chest
by a cord with tassels. There is no better representation of
medieval choir vestments in existence than these three figures.
The last panel is a curious representation of the Eternal
Father holding the crucifix ; this remarkable figure has a very
long face, great masses of curly hair, a huge crown, and
very long hands.
The two chapels of the north transept can only be reached
through the choir aisle, no doubt because the way to the
chapter-house was through them. The first was probably
St David's chapel. Here should be noticed the capital of
the easternmost shaft of the second transept pier — a head
with curly hair and handsome smiling face. This shaft is
corbelled off, and the corbel through carved in the shape of
a lizard eating the leaves of a plant with berries thereon ; it
is a charming study. The tomb of Bishop 6'//// (1543-1607)
in this chapel is under a handsome canopy of warm-coloured
marbles, with black columns and red, blue, and gold decoration.
The efifigy is dressed in rochet and chimere, over which is a red

THE INTERIOR

robe lined with white fur ; a ruff is round the neck, a close-
fitting black cap covers the head and part of the ears, and the
rochet is finished at the wrists with a plain black band.
In the chapel of the Holy
Cross the monument of the
intruding Bishop Kidder,
Ken's successor (p. 158, ob.
Z703), stands on the site of
the altar, whither it has been
removed from its original
position on the south side
of the choir. Standing in
all its chilly pretentiousness
so near to Still's tomb, it well
illustrates the immense de
cline in monumental art
which took place during the
seventeenth century. The
bishop's daughter, who
erected the monument, is
represented reclining, as, with
one arm outstretched, she
looks at two urns which are
supposed to contain the ashes
of her father and mother;
underneath is a very long
Latin inscription.
Against the north wall and
close to the entrance to the
chapter - house stands the
tomb of Bishop Corjiish
(ob. 1513). He was chan
cellor and precentor of Wells,
and suffragan bishop under
Bishop Fox of Bath and
Wells and Bishop Oldham
of Exeter, his title being Bishop of Tenos. Part of the
inscription remains : — Obiit supradictus dus Thomas Tinensis
Epiis tercio die mensis Julii anno. . . . MCCCCCXIII Cujus
Anime p [ropitietur Deus A] men. The three panels on the
front bear shields — T with a sheaf of corn, Cornish's arms (on

Phillips, Photo.]
THE ANNUNCIATION.
(Husse's Tomb.)

WELLS CATHEDRAL

a chevron between three birds' heads erased a mitre) and C with
a sheaf of corn ; on the side panel are the arms of the chapter,
the arms, that is, of the see without the pastoral staff. Against
the wall within the
canopy are some mat
rices of small brasses,
in which the kneeling
figure of a bishop, a
scroll, and two plates
for inscriptions can be
traced. From several pecu
liarities in Cornish's
tomb, I am convinced
that it was also used as
the Easter Sepulchre,
where the Host was
laid during the con
cluding days of Holy
Week. These sepul
chres were often made
in connection with a
tomb, and the usual
place for them was
somewhere on the
north side of the
choir. The position
here in the chapel of
the Holy Cross (which
is an appropriate de
dication) would be
particularly con
venient for the pur
pose. The chapel
was easily reached by
the clergy without
their having to go
into the public part of the church ; it was thus as safe a place
as the choir itself, and at the same time was much more open
to the people, who could pay their devotions from the transept,
and through the open stone screen could see the candles
burning round the sepulchre.

T. W. Phillip, Photo.]
PRIEST IN SURPLICE.
(Husse's Tomb.)

THE INTERIOR

103

Just where it could be best seen from the transept, on the
eastern end of the upper storey of the tomb under the canopy.

THE EAST END IN 1823.

is a carving of the Resurrection. A wide arch is cut in the
stone ; within this is carved a square opening, not through-cut.

104 WELLS CATHEDRAL
but farther recessed, to represent the mouth of the sepulchre ;
in front of the square recess is the figure of Christ, issuing from
the tomb, clad only in a long mantle, which He holds across
His body ; the hair is long, the face mutilated, and the hands
gone. At the left is the kneeling figure of a bishop, the head
gone, but part of the staff remaining in the hands. There is a
great crack (now filled with mortar) round these two figures, as
if the attack of the iconoclasts had been made with heavy tools.
A pedestal at the right-hand corner of the square recess seems
a later insertion, as it is loose and does not exactly fit ; probably
it was added soon after the tomb was made, to hold a small
silver figure of an angel, or of a soldier, as there is a little hole
(now filled with mortar) at a height above it convenient for
rivetting a metal figure.
The Sepulchre proper would have consisted of a small
coped chest, in shape like a reliquary, round which would be
painted the incidents of the Passion. The slab of the tomb,
being without the usual recumbent effigy, would have formed
the place on which this " coffer " rested, this being the usual
method when a tomb was used for the purpose. On Good
Friday, the Host, often in a specially-made pyx, was with
much ceremony laid in the coffer, together with the altar-cross,
and there was kept, surrounded by candles and guarded by
watchers, till Easter Day. We know that there was a special
provision at Wells for one candle to burn continuously within
the Sepulchre " / cereus in sepulchre cum corpori Dominiro qui
continue ardebit donee Matutinae cantentur in die Paschae"
MS. Harl. 1 682, fo. 5). There is a small hole in the east wall of
this chapel, close to the tomb and a little below the level of
of the slab whereon the coffer would have rested ; this may
have held a sconce or some ornament. But the cereus in
sepulchro was probably a large candle within the chapel, and in
accordance with general usage, there would have been other
candles burning upon cressets. There are two other holes in
the north wall, a few inches to the east of the top of the tomb,
which may have held rods for the curtains that were used
in much profusion for the adornment of Easter sepulchres.
While the coffer stood on the slab it would have hidden the
carving of the Resurrection; but on its removal on Easter Day,
the carving would have stood in full view of the people, bright,
no doubt, with colour and surrounded by lights. It will

THE INTERIOR 105
further be noticed that the tomb stands eighteen inches away
from the east wall, the space being now filled with modern
masonry ; this was probably in order to leave ample room
for the sacred ministers in their vestments ; had it stood
close against the wall the ceremonial could not have been
conveniently carried out.
Near the tomb is the doorway, with a fine old oak door,
which leads into the chapter-house ; and above the tomb is a
window which was blocked up when the vestibule was built,
and a bracket set in the masonry.
The Clock is a great favourite with visitors, who generally
congregate in the north transept at the striking of the hour
and laugh gently to one another when the quaint performance
is over. " Jack Blandiver " (this is the name given him by the
country people for some undiscovered reason) kicks his bell at
each quarter in the most life-like manner, his feet trembling
afterwards with the exertion ; but at the hour, after Jack has
sounded his four quarters, as the big bell begins to toll, the
four " knights " above the clock rush round in contrary
directions, and charge each other with so much ferocity that
one unfortunate is felled at each encounter, and has barely
time to recover his upright position before he is again and
again knocked down with resounding clatter upon his horse's
back. The other three fight twenty-four times a day un
scathed. The clock was thus described by Mr Octavius Morgan,
F.R.S., in the ArclicEological Journal iox 1883 :
" In the Cathedral of Wells is what remains of the ancient
clock which once belonged to Glastonbury Abbey. This very
curious timepiece is said to have been originally executed by
Peter Lightfoot, a monk of the abbey, but at the cost of Adam
de Sodbury, who was promoted to the abbacy in 1322. It
appears to have been originally placed in the south transept
of Glastonbury Abbey Church, where it continued till the
Dissolution, when, tradition says, it was carried to Wells and
placed in the north transept of the cathedral with all its
belongings — viz. the figure which strikes the quarters with his
heels on two little bells within the church, and the two
" knights " which perform the same service with their battle
axes on the outside. The inside figure strikes the hour on
a bell before him with a battle-axe in his hands. The face of

io6 WELLS CATHEDRAL
the dial is 6 feet in diameter, contained in a square frame, the
spandrels of which are filled with angels holding in their hands
the head of a man ; the outer circle is painted blue, with gilt
stars scattered over it, and is divided into twenty-four parts,
corresponding with the twenty-four hours ; the horary numbers
are in black-letter characters on circular tablets, and mark
the hours from twelve at noon to midnight, and from thence
to midnight again (noon and midnight being marked by a
cross instead of a numeral). The hour index, a large gilt
star or sun, is attached to the machinery behind a second
circle which conceals all except the index. On the second
circle are marked the minutes, indicated by a smaller star;
a third and lesser circle contains the numbers of the days of
the month, which is marked by a point attached to a small
circular opening in the plate, through which the phases of the
moon are shown. On the opposite side is a female figure,
with the motto Semper peragrat Pha;be.
" An arched pediment surmounts the whole, with an
octagonal projection from its base like a gallery, capped with
a row of battlements, forming a cornice to the face of the
clock. A panelled and battlemented turret is fixed in the
centre, round which four figures mounted on horses revolve
in opposite directions, as if charging at a tournament, when
set in motion by a communication with the clockwork, to be
made at pleasure ; these are commonly called knights, but
their costume is only that of ordinary persons. The move
ment is at a distance from the dial, and connected with it by
a long horizontal rod ; the dial work was close at the back of
the dial. The revolving figures on horseback are moved by
a separate weight, and are set in motion by the freeing of a
detent. The old boarding at the back [in the vestry of the
vicars-choral] is painted black, with a diaper scroll of foliage
with red and white roses. The female figure on the dial,
representing the moon, is always kept upright by a balance
weight ; the quarter-boys inside, who strike the quarters, are
much later, having knee-breeches.
" The outside dial has now two hands ; it was once like a
star with only one hand. The bells outside are struck by
two figures in armour, temp. Henry VIII., probably put up
when it was removed from Glastonbury.
" The clock seems to have remained without alteration

THE INTERIOR 107
after it was then put up, till the present modern movement,
made by Thwaites & Reed of Clerkenwell, was, in the time of
Dean Goodenough, substituted for it, and the old original
movement was taken and deposited in the crypt under the
chapter-house, where it remained uncared for, for many years,
during which time, 1853, I visited and examined it, made
notes of it, and took drawings of it. The great wheel has
ninety teeth, and the pinion, a lantern - pinion, had nine
leaves, or rather bars ; the second wheel had sixty teeth ; the
remainder of the works were all disjointed and bent, and
remained unheeded." The whole is now fitted together, and
in a going condition, in the mechanical museum at South
Kensington. The Antiquary for August 1897 ("Some Mediaeval
Mechanicians " ) reminds us that, as the clock was in con
stant use at Glastonbury for about 250 years, and then at
Wells for another 250 years, and as the old movement is
now still working at the South Kensington, "as though its
life were interminable " — it is probably the oldest piece of
working mechanism extant.
The same article says of these old works : " It will give
an idea of the labour involved, when it is stated the
mechanism of the clock occupies a space of about 5 feet cube
(125 cubic feet), that the structure is wholly of forged iron ;
that the numerous wrought- iron wheels, some of which are
nearly 2 feet in diameter and about \ inch thick, besides
having to be made truly circular and concentric, had all their
teeth cut out and trimmed to workable shape by hand ; and
that the heavy wrought-iron frames, etc., are fastened en
tirely by means of mortise, tenon, and colter, no screws being
used in the whole structure. The pinions are of the lantern
form, with octagonal cheek-plates on square spindles, and the
pendulum of modern form beats seconds."
The Inverted Arches. — Undoubtedly the first thing that
the stranger notices in Wells Cathedral, and the last that he is
likely to forget, is the curious contrivance by which the central
tower is supported. Of the three pairs of arches (the upper
arch resting inverted upon the lower) which stretch across the
nave and each of the transepts, that in the nave is seen at once,
and lends a unique character to the whole church. At first
these arches give one something of a shock, so unnecessarily

io8 WELLS CATHEDRAL
frank are they, so excessively sturdy, so very English, we may
think. They carry their burden as a great-limbed labourer will
carry a child in a crowd, to the great advantage of the burden,
and the natural dissatisfaction of the crowd. In fact, they seem
to block up the view, and to deform what they do not hide.
That is the first impression, but it does not last for long.
Familiarity breeds respect for this simple, strong device, which
arrested the fall of the tower in the fourteenth century, and
has kept its walls ever since in perfect security, so that the
great structure has stood like a rock upon the watery soil of
Wells for nearly seven centuries, with its rents and breaks just
as they were when the damage was first repaired. The in
genuity, too, of these strange flying buttresses becomes more and
more evident ; the " ungainly props " are seen to be so worked
into the tower they support, that they almost seem like part of
the original design of the first builders. One discovers that it
is the organ, and not the arches, that really blocks the view, and
one marvels that so huge a mass of masonry can look so light
as to present, with the great circles in the spandrels where the
arches meet, "a kind of pattern of gigantic geometrical tracery."
Indeed, I think no one who has been in Wells a week could
wish to see the inverted arches removed.
Professor Willis, who had made a most careful investigation
of the masonry, thus describes the cause and the construc
tion of the inverted arches (Somerset Proceedings, 1863, i. 21) :
"¦ It is evident that the weight of the upper storey of the tower
completed in 1321 had produced fearful settlements, the effects
of which may still be seen in the triforium arches of the nave,
and transepts next to the tower, which are dragged downwards and
deformed, partly rebuilt, filled up, and otherwise exhibiting the
signs so often seen under central towers, of a thorough repair.
The great piers of the tower are cased and connected by a
stone framework, which is placed under the north, south, and
west tower-arches, but not under the east. This framework
consists of a low pointed arch, upon which rests an inverted
arch of the same form, so as to produce a figure somewhat
resembling a St. Andrew's cross, to use the happy phrase applied
by Leland to a similar contrivance introduced for a similar
reason [but at a later date] into the central tower arches of
Glastonbury." To this description there only needs to be added
a mention of the circles which occupy the spandrels, and help

THE INTERIOR

109

to prevent the whole structure from seeming a mere inert mass
of masonry. To appreciate the work fully, it should be looked
at from some spot, such as the north-east corner of the north
transept, whence the three great pairs of arches can be seen
together. The effect from here is very fine, especially when
the nave is lighted up, and strong shadows are cast. The
extreme boldness of
the mouldings, the
absence of shafts
and capitals and of
all ornament, give
them a primitive
vigour, and their
great intermingling
curves, which con
trast so magnifi
cently with the
little shafts of the
piers beyond, seem
more like a part
of some great
mountain cavern
than a mere device
of architectural
utility. At the same time
as the arches were
built, flying but
tresses were in
serted further to
secure the tower,
and they can be
seen blocking up
the triforium and clerestory of those bays, in nave, choir, and
transepts, which adjoin it. Other repairs were necessary, for the
pier-arches of the same bays in nave and transepts were com
pletely shattered, and had to be replaced by the present ones,
the queer-looking capitals of which contrast so oddly with the
earlier work. It is instructive, also, to compare the lightness of
these fourteenth-century mouldings with the boldness of those,
wrought at exactly the same time, of the great inverted arches.

Dawkes dr* Partridge, Photo.]
THE INVERTED ARCHES, FROM THE
NORTH TRANSEPT.

no WELLS CATHEDRAL
The Tower. — Besides its inverted arches and other signs
of repair, the tower is mainly noticeable for its Perpendicular
fan-tracery vault of fifteenth-century date. This vault hides
the lantern with its arcades, and thus destroys one of the
elements of distance and mystery which, before the advent of
the more prosaic Perpendicular period, had been a character
istic of Gothic architecture. Nothing else but the desire for
uniformity can account for this unjustifiable addition ; for there
can have been no intention of hanging bells in the lantern
when there were already two western bell-towers. The lantern,
with its cracked masonry, can be seen during the ascent of the
tower (p. 47).
The shafts of the eastern tower arches were corbelled off at
some height from the ground, in order to allow the stalls of the
first ritual choir to be set flat against the wall. This shows that
Bishop Reginald, when he rebuilt the church, kept -to the old
.Romanesque arrangement and made his choir under the tower,
reserving his three bays of what is now the choir for the
presbytery — a very dignified arrangement. The square holes
for fixing the wooden screen of this earlier choir can still be
traced on the aisle walls in a line with the ninth piers of the
nave. The Screen was built in the fourteenth century ; but
Salvin altered and spoilt it by bringing forward the middle
portion to carry the unsightly organ. Mr Freeman objected
very strongly to the choir being shut off from the nave by
this screen, and urged the authorities to pull it down and
throw the whole church open from end to end. The remedy
suggested by Mr St. John Hope, on the other hand, is that a
second screen should be erected under the western arch of the
tower, against which the nave or rood altar should stand, with
seats for the choir on either side. Such a screen as this was
certainly used in conventual churches, and would be more in
accord with the spirit of medieval architecture, which was
content to sacrifice the grandeur of great space in order to
gain the qualities of seclusion and mystery, and inexhaustible
variety. Two things, at least, are certain. The long-established
custom of crowding the Sunday congregation into the choir
should be abolished, and the organ should be modified or
removed. Magnificent Sunday services could be held in the

Daivkes <S^ Partridge, Photo.] CHOIR, LOOKING WEST.

THE INTERIOR 113
nave, either with a second screen and altar or without a screen
at all ; but, as the former plan could be tried without any
destruction of old work, it should be tried first.
As for the organ, the cathedral will always be defaced while
it remains as a whole in the midst of the screen. Musical
experts could no doubt distribute it so that it would no longer
be an offence to the eye, and yet would sound more effectively
than at present. Perhaps galleries for the swell, pedal, and
great organs might be built above the pier-arches in the western
bay of the choir on either side, and the consol, with the choir
organ, might remain on the screen. Some fragments of taber
nacle work on the triforium level would thus be hidden, but it is
unremarkable work, exactly similar to that of the adjoining bays,
and, moreover, it was so blocked and patched when the tower
was strengthened that it would not be a disadvantage to hide it.
As it is, the organ, unsightly in shape, and garishly painted,
blocks up the view of the splendid east window, and makes
the nave a mere vestibule to the choir. The inverted arches
are generally thought to block up the church, but were the
organ removed it would be found that they do not.
The Organ is a modern instrument by Willis. Dean
Creyghton, a rnusician whose services are still sung in the
cathedral, built the old organ in 1664, and S.' Green of London
repaired it in 1786, but only one diapason remains of the old
stops. The case also disappeared, the present one being
among the ugliest in England. There are three manuals ;
thirteen speaking stops on the great organ, ten on the swell,
nine on the choir, and eight on the pedal organ. The swell
organ is rather small, but has been recently improved ; the
pedal organ is the best feature of the instrument. The wind
is supplied by hydraulic machinery. There are four pneumatic
pistons, six couplers, and seven composition pedals. The
organist now sits on the south side, so that he can see his
choristers, whether they sing in the choir or the nave.
The Choir. — The western part of the choir should be
particularly noticed. For, while the three eastern bays which
form the presbytery are Late Decorated, the three western bays
of the choir are twelfth-century work of Bishop Reginald's
time, being, in fact, the oldest part of the interior. That they
were finished before Reginald's other work in the transepts and
nave is not only likely from the general custom of medieval

114 WELLS CATHEDRAL
architects, but is made probable by the carving of the capitals,
which is less advanced than that in any other part of the
church. It will be noticed, however, that, though the three arches
remain of the earlier bays, the two easternmost piers of the old
part are Decorated, like those in the three later bays ; and
some of their arch mouldings have been cut away in order to
fit the new capitals. The reason for this peculiar combination
of a new pier with an old arch is an interesting one. The
original pier marked the east end of Reginald's church, and it
was taken from under its arch because, being at the junction of
the east wall with the side walls, it was a large compound pier
quite unfitted to stand as one of an arcade. The three bays
then formed the presbytery of the church, and the choir was
placed, Norman fashion, under the tower. A further evidence
of this being the original east end of the church is -presented
by the two early buttresses outside at this point, which are
much wider than any of the others. But there must have been
an ambulatory beyond the east end of the old church, since
Reginald's work is carried a bay farther east in the choir aisles.
There may, too, have been a small chapel beyond.
Speaking of the contrast between the three early bays and the
later work, Freeman says : " The new work, though exceed
ingly graceful, is perhaps too graceful ; it has a refinement and
minuteness of detail which is thoroughly in place in a small
building like the Lady Chapel, but which gives a sort of feeling
of weakness when it is transferred to a principal part of the
church of the full height of the building. The three elder
arches are all masculine vigour ; the three newer arches are
all feminine elegance ; but it strikes me that feminine elegance,
thoroughly in its place in the small chapels, is hardly in its
place in the presbytery."
Certainly, the mouldings of the later arches will not bear
comparison with those of the earlier. The suave strength of
the transitional mouldings forms a most instrucdve contrast to
the less effective minuteness of the decadent work. ' The same
is true of the capitals : those of the later period have little
architectural significance, and many of them are further
weakened by the fact that not the capital only, but the adjoin
ing part of the shaft as well, is cut out of white stone.
With the exception, however, of the three pier-arches them-

Dawkes d^ Partridge, Photo.] CHOIR, LOOKING EAST.
PROCESSION PATH AND LADY PATH BEYOND.

THE INTERIOR 117
selves, there are few signs of the twelfth-century work. For,
when the .new presbytery was finished, the clerestory over
the old arches was altered, and the triforium cased with
tabernacle work (though not in quite so rich a style), so as to
bring them into harmony with the fourteenth-century work,
and to fit them to carry the new vault. The tabernacle work
of the presbytery must have been completed first ; for no attempt
was made to keep it at the same level with the old part, which,
when the builders determined to adapt it to the new, caused a
very marked break at the juncture.
There is, strictly speaking, no triforium, the space being
occupied by the rather florid tabernacle work, the effect of
which is, of course, considerably impaired by the absence of
statuary. The niches in the presbytery are deeper than those
in the choir ; they spring direct from the pier-arches, having no
spandrel, and they contain richly-foliated brackets, which rest
on. triple shafts. This part is also marked by triple vaulting
shafts of Purbeck, which are carried down to the floor.
I'he clerestory windows contain flowing tracery of an ad
vanced and not very good type. In some the plain mullions
are carried on through the head of the window and intersect
each other.
Above the tabernacle work of the east end is the east
window of seven lights, the last bit of the fourteenth-century
reconstruction, the last flicker of Decorated freedom. Its
curious tracery is still beautiful, doubly so , for the
glass it enshrines, but the rule and square of Perpendicular
domination have already set their mark upon it ; the two
principal mullions run straight up to the window-head, and
part of the tracery between them is rectangular.
The inhabitants of Wells are, or were, exceedingly proud of
the "vista" into the procession-path and Lady Chapel, which
is afforded by the three dainty pointed arches of the east end.
So proud were they that they would suffer nothing to stand
behind the high altar but a low stone wall, barely higher than
the altar itself, an arrangement which, it is hardly necessary to
point out, defeated its own end by reducing the whole effect
to absolute baldness. Mr Freeman wisely pointed out the
need of a respectable reredos, remarking that the original
founders never dreamed of the Lady Chapel acting as a " peep-
show to the choir." A Lady Chapel, he added, was built

ii8 WELLS CATHEDRAL
specially not to be peeped into, but to be a thing apart from
the great whole of the church, from the high altar westward.
After a while, a reredos was offered to the church, and approved
by Mr J. D. Sedding, who was then the cathedral architect ;
but there was much opposition, and the scheme was dropped.
Dean Plumptre, with characteristic temerity, went so far as to
appeal to the witness of the vox populi that the open view was
the best. Since then, wiser counsels have prevailed, and a
curtain (small and dingy, it is true, but still a curtain) now
hangs behind the altar. While giving a measure of dignity to
the east end, it, of course, emphasises, as every architect must
have known that it would, the charm of the " peep " into the
chapels beyond.
A larger reredos would further enhance the peculiar charm
of the east end. There can, indeed, be little doubt that the
ancient reredos was of tabernacle work, so as to carry on the
effect of niches of the triforium storey. Their present dis
connectedness can be no part of the original plan, and a
reredos full of statues, which was high enough to group
adequately with the rich canopies above could have been the
only way to secure dignity and unity of effect. Till an architect
is found capable of mastering so delicate a problem of propor
tion as such a reredos must present, we may well be content
with a larger and brighter curtain. The low east wall, with its
ugly cresting, warns us not to embark too rashly upon modern
stonework. The lierned stone vault, with its heavy, angular ribs, is of a
very unusual kind. Mr Freeman described it as "a coved roof,
such as we are used to in woodwork in this part of England,
only with cells cut in it for the clerestory windows." The
restorers have gilded the bosses, but the space between the
ribs is smoothed in a way that gives the appearance of there
being no masonry in the construction. One can hardly judge
the ceiling, therefore, by its present appearance, which is not
further improved by the green wash with which some of the
clerestory windows are covered.
The general appearance of the choir suffers pitiably from
the ill-advised restoration of 1848 and the following years.
Before that time its aspect must have been curious and en
cumbered ; but the judicious removal of the pews and galleries,
and the restoration of the truncated oak canopies of the stalls,

THE INTERIOR 119
would have made matters right at a small cost, and without
the destruction of any old woodwork. As it was, everything
was ruthlessly swept away. The tabernacled stalls, which
eighteenth-century vandalism had respected, vanished utterly
before the restoring mania of the Gothic revivalist, even their
traditional position and order being changed.
The result is just what might have been expected. The
place has been completely modernised. Chilly stone canopies
cover the stalls ; they are of the kind of workmanship which
forty years ago was considered excellent. That is to say, they
are covered with frigid, ungainly, and pompous ornament, cut
with mechanical regularity, and without one trace of feeling or
one line of beauty from beginning to end. Below, and between
them, the choir is encumbered, much as it was before 1848,
with rows of stalls, which are continued in the presbytery
almost up to the tawdry brass altar-rails. Two more pale
ghosts of medieval art front each other in complacent parody
of the work their makers could not even copy — the pulpit and
the bishop's throne. The former is Early Victorian ; the latter
is worse, it is a restoration of Perpendicular work so relentless
that not a sign of the original conception remains. Plate-glass
fills the tracery at the sides, and the door is a piece of solid
swinging stone. On the completion of this terrible work,
the restorers seem to have felt dimly the want of colour,
which previously had been so abundant. They therefore
proceeded to furnish with that peculiar musty red which used
to cast a gloom over our childhood — red cushions on the
seats, red cushions on the desks, red hassocks on the floor,
red edges to the books, hot red in the bishop's throne, dull
red on the altar, before the altar, and behind the altar, it is
all red but the chilly white stone, and the all-pervading wood
work of the seats, which adds the muddy gloom of oak that
has been stained and varnished to the miserable poverty of the
whole. The cause of all this desolation was just the ignorance of its
promoters as to the functions of a cathedral. The choir was
looked upon as a select church for the leading families of the
town, and the seats in it were appropriated ; the nave was a
vast empty space that was never used for worship at all.
Hence the organ on the screen, hence the setting back of the
stalls, so that the choir might be widened, and more seats

I20 WELLS CATHEDRAL
"rammed, jammed, crammed," to use Freeman's indignant
words, into the space. Instead of the long continuous range
of stalls which formerly existed, there are now groups of five
under each arch, with the result that ten of the prebendaries
are without accommodation. Such is the heavy legacy of blunders
with which the dean and chapter are burdened. It will take
many a year before the choir can be redeemed from its
unfortunate state ; but the present arrangement of the altar
is a great improvement on its position only a few years ago,
and no doubt similar measures will in time completely efface
the traces of 1850.
Of the old woodwork the Misericords have alone escaped
destruction. Sixty-four of these remain, fifty of which belonged
to the prebendal stalls of the upper row, though they were
removed from their proper position at the restoration. Sixty
of the seats are now in the lower rows of the stalls, the other
four are preserved in the library. It is enough to say of them
that no finer examples of wood-carving can be seen in England.
The following description of the wonderfully fresh and varied
subjects was supplied by Mr St. John Hope for a paper read
by Canon Church before the Society of Antiquaries m March
1896 :—
Sottth side, first row. — I, a goat (broken); 2, a griffin fighting witt
a lion (?) ; 3, a man in hood and drawers riding with his face to the
tail of a barebacked horse ; 4, a hawk preying on a rabbit ; 5, a mermaid
(unfinished) ; 6, two popinjays in a fruit tree ; 7, an ape carrying a basket
of fruit on his back (broken) ; 8, a double-bodied monster ; 9, a' dog-
headed griffin ; lo, two goats butting (unfinished) ; 11, a monkey holding
an owl (unfinished) ; 12, two dragons interlocked and biting each other's
tails ; 13, an ewe suckling a lamb (unfinished) ; 14, a wyvern and a horse
fighting. South side, second row. — 15, a mermaid sucliling a lion; 16, a
man holding a cup? (broken), sitting on the ground, and disputing with
another man holding a pouch ; 17, a cat preying on a mouse (unfinished) ;
18, a monster with bat's wings ; 19, a griffin devouring a Iamb ; 20, a
puppy biting a cat ; 21, a man in a contorted position upholding the seat ;
22, a serious-looking dog ; 23, a cat playing a fiddle ; 24, a man seated on
the ground and thrusting a dagger through the head of a dragon with
feathered wings ; 25, bust of a bishop, in amice, chasuble, and mitre
(unfinished) ; 26, a peacock in his pride ; 27, a fox preaching to four geese,
one of which has fallen asleep (broken) ; 28, a cock crowing. North side,
first row. — 29, a lion dormant ; 30, a dragon with expanded wings, asleep ;
3 1 , a man with his left eye closed, wearing a cloak and squatting on the
ground with his hands on his knees ; 32, a fox running off with a goose in
his mouth ; 33, head of a man with donkey's ears ; 34, two monsters with
male and female human heads, caressing (unfinished) ; 35, a man on his

THE INTERIOR 121
back upholding the seat with his right hand and right foot ; 36, a lion with
the ears of an ass ; 37, a hawk scratching its head ; 38, a sleeping cat
(unfinished) ; 39, a woman with dishevelled hair and agonised expression,
crouching on the ground with the right hand on her shoulder, the other
extended ; 40, a dragon with hairy belly biting his back ; 41, two ducks
addorsed, one with his beak open ; 42, two dragons fighting (unfinished) ;
43, a bat's head (unfinished). North side, second row. — 44, head of a man
with bushy hair and beard, with a lion's leg growing out of each side ;
45, a man in tunic and hood, lying on his side and clasping his hands ;
46, a man in ginled tunic, with his head downwards, upholding the seat
with his back and left hand ; 47, head of a lady with hair in a caul on each
side, covered with a veil confined by an ornate fillet ; 48, a gentle-looking
lion ; 49, a bat displayed ; 50, head of an angel, with amice round neck and
expanded wings; 51, a lion; 52, two doves about to drink from a ewer
standing in a basin (unfinished) ; 53, a. squirrel with a collar round his
neck, trying to escape from a monkey who holds him by a cord ; 54, a
wood-pigeon feeding ; 55, a man riding on a lion, to whose buttocks he is
applying a whip ; 56, a boar and a cat with cloven feet, walking in opposite
directions ; 57, an eagle displayed (unfinished) ; 58, head and shoulders of
a man who upholds the seat with his hands ; 59, a rabbit regardant ; 60, a
two-legged beast regarding its tail, which is formed of three oak-leaves on
one stem. In the library. — 61, a man in hood and loose tunic, kneeling
on the ground and thrusting a spear down the throat of a dragon ; 62, a
boy in gown, with long, wavy hair, lying on his side and drawing a thorn
out of his left foot (of coarse late seventeenth-century work) ; 63, a dove
or pigeon feeding her young ; 64, a sorrowful-looking king sitting cross-
legged on a cushion between two rampant griffins, who are secured by
straps buckled round their necks.
Glass in the Choir. — Over the high altar is a superb
specimen of the Jesse window. It is so intricate, that at first
nothing can be distinguished in the glow of jewelled colour
but the twining branches of the vine, and a little time is needed
to enter into the spirit of a window that is all the more endur
ing for not being very obvious. The following excellent
description by Canon Church (in a sermon preached in the
cathedral on May Day 1890) will make the legend easy to
decipher : —
"In the central light are the foremost figures of the Bible
story. At the base is the recumbent figure of Jesse with
name inscribed, with head resting on hand as in meditation.
From that figure, as from the vine stem, issues upward the
leading shoot, bearing upon it the figures of the Virgin Mother
crowned with ruby nimbus, and the Holy Child with gold
nimbus, both under a golden canopy. Above, in line, is the
Crucifixion. On either side, the waving tendrils of the vine
shoots intertwine themselves in rings of light round figures of

122 WELLS CATHEDRAL
those who prepared the way for the advent of the Word
Incarnate. On the lower tier, in line with Jesse, are, we
may believe, the ancestors of Jesse. Amminadab and Obed
are inscribed on two of the pedestals — others are nameless.
Stately figures they are in face and form, in flowing mantles of
green, and ruby and gold, like Arab chiefs, some with the
Arab head-covering such as is worn to-day — figures such as
some artist in the last crusading host might have seen and de
signed, so different from the conventional portraiture of Bible
characters. " In the second tier are the Kings and Prophets chosen to
represent the heralds of the Babe of Bethlehem, the Word
Incarnate. Three kings — David with his 'immortal harp of
golden wires ' ; Solomon, with Temple model in his hand, in
robes of emerald, and ruby, and gold, are on either side of the
central Figures ; and Jechonias, the link in the pedigree
between the royal David and the captive exile. Three Prophets
— Abraham, misplaced indeed in order of time, but most fitly
in place as ' the father of the faithful, unto whom and through
whom the gospel was before preached to the Gentiles ' (Gal.
iii. 8) ; Hosea, and Daniel. All these are clad in the magnifi
cence of Oriental drapery, the colours of each pair on either
side of the central light answering like to like. Some are
looking upward, some are pointing with outstretched hand
towards The Child, towards the Crucified One.
"Therein central light in the mid-panel of the window is
the Virgin Mother and the Holy Child, The Child born in
Bethlehem the home of Jesse, not in David's royal Palace, the
flowering shoot of the stem of Jesse. Now from His throne
on His Mother's knee He looks out over the world and as
with outstretched arms to embrace. A ray of white light on
the Mother's head gives a natural halo of purity to Her ' the
highly favoured' 'with grace replete,' whom all generations
have called ' blessed,' as she looks down wondering on the
Holy Child.
" A subdued and sadder colour seems to veil the subject of
the highest panel in the central light. There is the green Cross
in the background, and upon it are afifixed the attenuated arms
and the bent form of the Crucified — the head drooping on the
breast. On either side of the Cross stand, the sorrowing
Mother on the right, in attitude of calm resignation, very

THE INTERIOR 123
different from the conventional garb of mourning, and the
exaggerated expression of grief in so many paintings ; on the
other hand St. John, in sadder colours and the gloom of grief
Again above, in two of the smaller six-cusped lights, are figures
rising from the tomb, and in the two at the side are angels
blowing trumpets calling to judgment. At the head and apex
of the window are outstretched wings as of the Holy Spirit like
the Dove brooding over the world re-created by the Word made
Flesh, giving Himself for our redemption."
The clerestory windows contained a figure under a canopy
in each of the lower lights. Four of these old windows remain.
One light in the north-east window contains a St. George, thus
described by Mr C. Winston (Arch. Soc, Bristol vol.) : "He is
clad in a surcoat which reaches to the knee. He wears a
helmet, avant and rerebras, shin-pieces and sollerets of plate,
or rather cuir boulli ; the rest of his person is defended with
mail, on his shoulders are aiglettes." In the next window are
St. Egidias with very distended ears, and St. Gregory in a tiara.
There are also two modern windows ; a glaring one by Wille-
ment has St. Dunstan and St. Benignus, who were both
abbots of Glastonbury and St. Honorius ; another, by Bell,
has Augustine, Ambrose, and Athanasius.
The Aisles of the Choir are entered from the transepts
by ogee arches, which have crockets and finials, and are flanked
by a pair of pinnacles on either side. The aisles are of the same
character as the choir itself, as they were vaulted when the
choir vault was made, and new windows of the Decorated style
were inserted in the western bays as well as in the newer part.
There is a stone bench along the aisles on both sides, and on
the north side some very fine specimens of Early English
carving lie on the bench. The vaulting is lierned with four
bosses at each intersection. The foliage of the third group of
capitals on the north side consists of a single leaf which runs
horizontally round the caps.
Two old wooden doors, with fine hinges, close the entrance
to the presbytery on the north and south sides.
The body of Bishop Jocelin lies buried in the midst of the
choir, where he was laid in the place of honour as a founder.
Bishop Godwin relates that the tomb was " monstrously
defaced " in his time, and all traces of the burying-place were
lost until, in 1874, an ancient freestone coffin was found under

124 WELLS CATHEDRAL
the pavement in the midst of the choir. Its covering stone
had been broken, and the bones within disturbed ; but on its
discovery the stone was renewed, and the inscription Jocelinus
de Welles, Ep. 1242 cut on it.
The South-East Transept is the chapel of St. John the
Evangelist, but it is mainly occupied by a stove, one of those
characterised by Mr Freeman as " the most hideous stoves
with which human perversity ever disfigured an ancient build
ing." Odds and ends are also kept here, in accordance with
the extraordinary idea, not yet quite extinct, that a chapel is a
place where rubbish may be shot. There is, nevertheless, a
decorated piscina in the east wall to remind one of its former
purpose. Against the south wall is the tomb of the learned
Dean Gunthorpe (1472-98), who built the present Deanery, and
gave to the cathedral a silver image of our Lady, 158 oz. in
weight. His initials occur on the panels, I. G. on a blue
ground, and also his arms, which include guns, in allusion to
his name. There are traces of colour, especially a strong light
blue on the panels. Unless one has good nerves, it is
advisable not to look at the window, which was given by the
students of the Theological College under Canon Pindar, its
first Principal. The middle of this unfortunate chapel is
encumbered with a monument to Deaii Jenkyns (ob. 1854),
the ornamentation of which may be taken as marking the
lowest point to which the debasement of Gothic design has
descended. A row of tiles round it serves to make it more
conspicuous, and its unhappy prominence is further secured by
a low brass railing of unutterably bad workmanship. It was
Dean Jenkyns who restored the choir, and Professor Freeman
remarks that on his tomb " is written, with an unconscious
sarcasm, Multum ei debet ecclesia Wellensis," words which, he
slily points out, seem to be borrowed from Lucan's address to
Nero, the destroyer of Rome, Multum Roma tamen debet, etc.
Monuments in the South Choir Aisle.— Besides two
of the thirteenth-century effigies of earlier bishops, there are in
this aisle two ancient monuments of great interest. In the
second bay is the tomb of Saint William Bytton (1267-12 74),
a low slab of Purbeck marble, with the figure of a bearded
and fully-vested bishop, in the act of benediction, cut upon
it. This is the oldest incised slab in England ; and it was at
this tomb that the offerings were made which helped to finish

THE INTERIOR 125
the church. Godwin says that " many superstitious people
(especially such as were troubled with the tooth-ake) were
wont (even of late yeeres) to frequent much the place of his
buriall, being without the North [a mistake for south] side
of the Quier, where we see a Marble stone, having a pontificall
image graven upon it."
It may have once been more raised than now, and four
small plugged holes in the masonry of the wall opposite suggest
the existence of some arrangement in connection with the
devotions here. In the restoration of 1848 the tomb was
discovered between the second and third piers of the south
choir aisle. It is thus described by Mr J. R. Clayton, an eye
witness on the occasion :
" On the coffin being opened in the presence of Dean
Jenkyns, it contained a skeleton laid out in perfect order,
every bone in its right place ; an iron ring, and a small wooden
pastoral staff in two fragments; a leaden tablet, 10 in. by 3^,
with inscription most beautifully rendered in Lombardic
characters. Hie jacet Willelmus de Button secundus Bath-
oniensis et Wellensis episcopus sepultus XII.
die Decembris anno domini MCCLXXIIII."
It was noted at the same time that " the teeth were absolutely
perfect in number, shape, and order, and without a trace of
decay, and hardly any discoloration." From this one would
infer that the saint was famous in his lifetime for his beautiful
teeth, and that it was for this reason that his aid came to be
invoked after his death by those suffering from toothache. It
is certainly curious that men now living should have discovered
his teeth to be still in such perfect preservation. His con
temporaries would, no doubt, have called it a miracle.
A little farther east is the remarkable tomb of Bishop
Beckington, surrounded by an exquisite iron screen of the same
period. Its canopy formerly projected into the choir, being
large enough to form a small chantry ; but, when the choir was
so stupidly restored, the canopy was dragged from its place, and
set up in St. Calixtus' chapel, where it still is (p. 99,) a hard-
looking stone screen being built between the tomb and the
choir in its stead. The tomb is divided into two parts, the
arcade which forms the canopy of the lower effigy supporting

126 WELLS CATHEDRAL
the slab on which rests the figure of the bishop. The carving
is very beautiful, and the delicately-wrought wings of the angels,
which spread over the arches so as to fill the spandrels, are
especially fine. Traces of colour are strong on the tomb,
as they are on the canopy from which it has been divorced, so
that one can form some little idea of what the whole must have
been like in its first magnificence.
The effigy of the bishop rests upon it, the old and wrinkled
face (best seen from within the choir) bearing deep traces
of that active public life which did so much for the city
and the church. Below, in strange contrast to the gorgeous
vestments, which have still the remnants of the painted
pattern on them, lies a corpse, almost a skeleton, in its open
shroud. At first one's feeling is that of repulsion, but it is
lessened when we remember that Beckington himself had the
tomb made, and consecrated it before a vast concourse of
people, saying mass for his own soul, for those of his parents,
and of all the faithful departed in the January of 1452. Thus
for thirteen years did this great and famous prelate live with his
tomb standing as a witness to all that, under those sumptuous
robes of office which we are told he wore at its consecration,
he knew himself to be but as other men, and could wait
humbly for his end.
A little farther east is a large and rather clumsy effigy oi Bishop
Hareivell (ob. 1386), whose name and arms are suggested, in
the playful fashion of the time, by two hares at his feet.
Harewell is known to have been a portly man.
To the west of Beckington's monument an altar tomb in
reddish alabaster has been placed in memory of Lord Arthur
Hervey, the late bishop, with an effigy by Mr Brock. It may
be hoped that it is the last of its kind, since there is little room
for more tombs, and great need of other and more useful forms
of memorial.
Bishop Drokensford' s tomb, at the entrance to the south-east
transept, is of unusual design, the ogee heads of its panels
being through-cut from side to side. Only the bases remain of
its canopy, which was taken down in 1758, as it was thought
to be in danger of falling. There is a good deal of colour on
the tomb; the chasuble is red with green lining, its orphreys are
painted on the stone. The apparel is also painted on the alb,
the orphreys and ornaments on the mitre, and a lozenge-shaped

THE INTERIOR 127
pattern on the cushion. Two shields are emblazoned over and
over again on the spandrels, the ground being alternately red
and green with white sprays of foliage ; the coat with four
swans' heads, couped and addorsed, is Drokensford's. He
was bishop when Dean Godelee's great works were going on,
and he gave money towards building the central tower.
Monuments of the North Choir Aisle. — One of the
Early English effigies, which were made probably by Bishop
Jocelin, lies here, with a modern inscription, to Bishop Giso.
There are four others, to jEthelwyii, Leofric, Duduc, and
Burwold, all having the same characteristics, in the ambu
latory chapels and opposite aisle. Graceful and solemn as
they are, they seem rough in outline, as if they were carved by
a hand used to calculating for the distant views of the west
front, and almost weather-worn, by the side of the more highly-
finished effigies in marble and alabaster which are near them.
In the year 1848, when these monuments were set back and
placed on their present ugly bases, they were found to contain
boxes with bones therein, and leaden tablets with the name of
fiach bishop inscribed upon them.
A different monument is that of Ralph of Shrewsbury
(ob. 1363), whose marble effigy, scored by the names of long-
departed vandals, affords a good example of the episcopal
ornaments, the mitre, gloves, maniple, the apparel round the
neck, and the vexillum round the crozier. The tomb formerly
stood surrounded by a grating, in the midst of the presbytery,
for Ralph was the " finisher " of the church. But it was after
wards moved, and, says Godwin, it "lost his grates by the
way." At the entrance to the little transept is the tomb of
Deati Forrest (ob. 1446), similar to that of Drokensford in
the opposite aisle, but more mutilated. The canopy is gone,
but fragments of it are in the undercroft of the chapter-house.
The North-East Transept is the chapel of St. John
Baptist, and contains a Decorated piscina. On its east wall is
a sculpture of the Ascension, which formerly was fixed in the .
east cloister above the I.H.S. in the fourth bay. St. Andrew
with his cross may be noticed among the Apostles. There are
traces of blue in the background, and of red in one of the
cloaks. Most noticeable among its monuments is the hand
some marble sarcophagus and effigy of Bishop Creyghto?i, who
gave the lectern. The figure is vested in cope, mitre, and alb.

128 WELLS CATHEDRAL
a fact which is worth noting, as the bishop lived in the reign
of Charies II. There is also an effigy oi John de Myddleton
or Milton, who, after being chancellor for a very short time,
became a friar and died in 1337. The plain tomb of Bishop
Berkeley (ob. 1581) bears a curious inscription, which assumes
more than the character of its subject would seem to warrant:
Spiritvs, ervpto, salvvs, gilberte novembre, carcere principis
en(c) cetkere barkle, crepat. an : dat ista salutis. Which may
thus be translated, " Thy soul is safe, Gilbert Barkley, having
broken from its prison in the beginning of November, it speaks
from the sky. These words give the year of its safety." The
words referred to are in the middle part of the tomb^
f 7x2, v.detis prcemium : „
n Lvxi, redux qtneascibus.
^ Pro, captua gendo pmsulis
Seplem per annos triplices
The figures 83 at the side of Vixi and Lvxi suggested to Mr
J. Parker that the letters stood also for figures thus — vi (6)
xi (11) Iv (55) xi (11), the total being 83, which was the age at
which Berkeley died. The quatrain may be translated —
" I have lived, you see my reward :
I have shone, returning to my rest.
Having held the office of bishop
For seven times three years."
The east end of the north aisle forms a roomy chapel which
is dedicated to St. Stephen, and contains a piscina of the same
type as those in the neighbouring chapels. Its east window
has five lights, and that in the side wall has three, with good
reticulated tracery ; the principal mouldings are already assum
ing the large flat hollow form which was to become characteristic
of the Perpendicular style. The chapel of St. Catherine on
the south side corresponds to it exactly.
The Procession Path, or, to use the uglier and more
accurate word, the Retro-choir, is a rectangular space between
these chapels and the transepts, on the north and south, and
the Lady Chapel and presbytery on the east and west. This
space is vaulted ; and the vault is carried by four slender piers
of Purbeck marble, with attached shafts, in the midst, by a group
of Purbeck shafts on each of the two piers which lead into the
Lady Chapel, and by the light blue Purbeck shafts of the

THE INTERIOR

129

eastern arches of the presbytery. As two of the middle piers
(which are set diagonally from north-east to south-west, and
from south-east to north-west) are in a line with the pier-arches
of the choir, while the other two, though in a line with those
of the Lady Chapel (which themselves project into the Path),
are without those of the choir, a complicated system of vaulting
and a charming arrangement of piers is the result. Indeed, this
exquisite group of piers has never been surpassed, and nothing

Dawkes ^ Partridge, Photo.]
PROCESSION PATH AND LADY CHAPEL.
can be found that better illustrates the subtlety and extreme
refinement of the last stages of Gothic architecture at their
best. At whichever point one stands fresh beauty is apparent.
It is merely a device for connecting Lady Chapel with choir,
while leaving a wide path free for processions, yet what a gem
of perfection has been drawn from the need ! As one sits at
the corner near the south wall of the Lady Chapel, one can
best appreciate the range of vaulting, which, though it is
doubled here, is of the same height as that of the aisles,
running faithfully round to cover the ambulatory which en-
i

130 WELLS CATHEDRAL
circles the choir, while on either side the pillars soar upward to
the higher vault of the Lady Chapel and the yet higher ceiling
of the choir. Opposite are the painted fragments of glass in
the north choir aisle, seen through the arches of the presbytery,
and the windows over the range of tabernacle work in the
choir itself On the left the south aisle can be seen stretching
onwards, across the bright break of the transept, to the west
end, and on the right are the gorgeous windows of the Lady
Chapel. Everywhere the slender pillars stand, and the mould
ings branch away from their rich capitals, each doing its
appointed work, calculated and exact, in what would seem at
$rst but a lavish profusion of marble shaft and moulded stone.
Yet we can hardly now imagine what it all was like before the
richly-decked altars' were torn down, the painted windows
knocked to fragments, the canopies, tombs, and images defaced
or destroyed.
The vault is lierned with richly-carved bosses still warm
with the marks of gilding ; both on the bosses and the capitals
the foliage is of the crumpled character suggestive of the oak-
leaf Unlike the piers of the Lady Chapel, the bases here are of
marble, though the plinths are of stone. Two grotesque heads,
lower than the bosses, at the north and south-western angles,
hold three ribs in their mouths, the ribs, which end there in
seeming futility, being used to cover an awkward corner of the
vaulting. Glass in the Choir Aisles and Chapels. — A good
deal of glass in a more or less fragmentary condition
survives in the eastern portion of the church. It is fine work
of the first half of the fourteenth century. In the south aisles
there is good glass in all the upper lights ; the third window
has later glass in the lower lights, which bears the date 1607,
and consists of coats of arms and a series of small square
pictures of foreign type. The east window of St. Catherine's
chapel is composed of fragments fitted together at random ; in
the upper lights of the south window are rather coarse heads
of St. Aldhelm, St. Erkenwald, and other saints : two of them
should be noticed for the early form of papal tiara. In the
corresponding chapel of St. Stephen both the east and north
windows are the same, the north window even containing a
second head of St. Erkenwald ; the other saints are inscribed —

THE INTERIOR r3i
"St. Stephanas Papa" (the Pope Stephen, who died 257),
"S. Blasii Epi" (St. Blaise), and "S. Marcellus Papa"; in the
topmost light of both windows is a small figure of Our Lord.
In the north aisle, the first window (counting from the east)
contains a St. Michael ; the next a crucifix and a figure of St.
Mary Magdalen, with some sixteenth-century coats (including
the curious arms of Bishop Knight, p. 87) in the lower lights.
Similar coats are in the third window, which has a figure of
St. John Baptist. The fourth window contains modern glass
erected in honour of Bishop Ken (p. 157), as a memorial to
Dean Plumptre, who died in 1891. In the centre Ken is
represented in full pontifical vestments, below him angels are
supporting his arms impaled with those of the see ; over his head
is the favourite superscription of his letters, "All glory be to God,"
and at his feet his rule of life ^^ Et tu quceris tibi grandia2
Noli qucBrere" (Jer. xlv. 5). The left-hand panels represent St.
Paul teaching Timothy (because Ken wrote the " Manual for
Winchester Scholars," and the "Exposition of the Catechism"),
Christ's charge to St. Peter ; the right panels represent St.
Paul before Agrippa and St. Peter in prison (because Ken was
one of the seven bishops imprisoned by James II.). Ihe two
lower panels represent labourers going to their work singing
Benedicite, and a priest and choristers chanting Nunc Dimittis,
in allusion to Ken's morning and evening hymns.
The Lady Chapel was finished in 1326, before the
presbytery was added to the present choir, and thus it belongs
to the middle of the Decorated period. In plan it is octagonal,
the three western sides consisting of the three arches by
which it is opened to the rest of the church. It could, in
fact, stand perfectly well as a detached building like the Lady
Chapel at Gloucester, and doubtless it did so stand while the
presbytery was a-building ; but its connection with the church
itself allows its apsidal west end to be cunningly combined
with the beautiful pillars which support the vault of the
ambulatory. The arrangement by which these three western
sides project into the ambulatory is more easy to see than to
describe ; from the west side of the piers which support them
spring the vaulting ribs of the retro-choir, while on the east
side of the piers the shafts rise much higher up to carry the
loftier vault of the Lady Chapel. As the chapel is not a perfect
octagon like the chapter-house, but is elongated from east to

132 WELLS CATHEDRAL
west, this vault was difificult to manage, and its lines are
somewhat distorted in consequence. The vault springs from
triple shafts between fine traceried windows of five lights, and
its ribs meet in a boss containing a beautiful figure of our
Lord seated on a throne with outstretched arms ; the colour
and gilding are well restored.
Professor Willis said that "the polygonal Lady Chapel and
the vaulted work which connects it with the presbytery is a
most original and unique piece of architecture, of pure and
beautiful design." As to the first part of this sentence there
can be no difference of opinion, and all will agree as to the
fineness of the general effect of the chapel ; yet there may well
be two opinions as to the purity of the work. I confess that the
following criticism (Builder, Aug. 1862) from a lecture of Mr
E. W. Godwin seems to me to be not entirely without justifica
tion : — " With the single exception of the way in which the vault
ing is managed, I look upon this Lady Chapel as no better than
the other work of the same date. There is a weakness about the
constant recurrence of the same form in the tracery of the
windows ; the lines of the vault are, in some cases, clumsy to
a degree ; and the capitals have lost their constructional
character altogether. The growth and vitality, the change and
joyfulness, so visible in the earlier caps, especially those with
figures, are no longer to be seen. Leaves are now stuck on ;
or, at the best, wreathed round the bell of the capital ; and so
the function of the capital — the upbearing principle — is lost."
So much for its defects. The peculiar excellence of the
chapel is that it gives that apsidal ending to the church
which adds so much to its beauty both within and with
out, and yet does not interfere with the square end of the
presbytery. The Lady Chapel has been fitted up for the use of the
Theological College, and its furniture contrasts favourably with
that of the choir. A litany desk, stalls, and credence-table in
oak have recently been given, and a retable carved by Miss
Neville ; the altar cross, however, is too stunted for its position.
The eagle lectern, in spite of its dark appearance, is modern,
of Dean Goodenough's time. The doorway on the south side
led to the old vestry, so wantonly destroyed in the present
century : now that the chapel is in daily use the need of the
vestry is much felt, and a cupboard in St. John's chapel has to

THE INTERIOR 133
serve for a makeshift. The gas-brackets are of later and more
pleasant work than those elsewhere.
Mr Ferrey discovered fragments of a reredos at the east end
of the chapel, and set them up as best he could to form the
present reredos : the original arrangement seems to be lost, for
some of the pedestals are on the level of the floor, while some
of the niches at the top are cut in half Mr Ferrey restored
the whole chapel at the same time, and paved it with tiles.
Glass in Lady Chapel. — The large windows of this
chapel are all filled with beautiful fourteenth-century glass, but
alas ! in a marred condition. The side windows contain frag
ments packed together anyhow. The eastern window was
made up out of old pieces by Willement at Dean Goodenough's
restoration, and its colour almost completely spoilt by modern
insertions. The harm, however, is not irreparable, for the
figures are almost entirely genuine, and the bad effect is mainly
due to Willement's blue background. A careful examination
would easily separate the new from the old, and it would be
quite easy at the present day to remove the bad work and
replace it by glass that would carry out the old harmony of
colour. The lower lights are filled with two tiers of figures in
canopies, David and other patriarchs in the upper tier, and the
following well-chosen series in the lower : — The Madonna in the
midst, on her right the Serpent and Eve, on her left the Brazen
Serpent and Moses. The upper lights of this window contain
angels bearing the instruments of the Passion, which are un
spoilt, as are also the busts of patriarchs in the north-east
window, and of bishops in that on the south-east. Three of
the topmost lights contain emblems of the Evangelists, the
fourth is lost. One inscription remains, Ista capella constructa
est . . . but the date is gone.
A tall and light monument stands between the Lady Chapel
and St. Catherine's ; its crocketed finials, filled with tracery,
rise almost to the ceiling. The canopy is open at the sides
and western end, but the eastern end forms a niche ; this part
has been restored in colour and gilding, it is powdered with
fleurs-de-lys, and bears a shield containing the Agnus Dei. No
other part shows any trace of colour. The base is much
higher than that of an ordinary tomb, and the canopy seems
to have been somewhat altered at Ferrey's restoration.
The spot where the altar of St. Catherine and All Virgins

134 WELLS CATHEDRAL
stood is now "Sacred to the memory of John Phelips Of
Montacute in this county esquire. Descended from a line
of ancestors, Whose names for two centuries and a half abound
in the annals of the county. He succeeded at an early age to
the paternal estates. And sustained the wonted hospitality of
his hou.se. He soon became a most active and intelligent
magistrate," etc., etc.
The Chapter-House Staircase is entered by the door
way in the eastern aisle of the north transept. There are few
things in English architecture that can be compared with it
for strange impressive beauty ; the staircase goes upward for
eighteen steps and then part of it sweeps off to the chapter
house on the right, while the other part goes on and up till it
reaches the chain-bridge ; thus the steps lie, worn here and
there by the tread of many feet, like fallen leaves, the last of
them lost in the brighter light of the bridge. Here one is still
almost within the cathedral, and yet the carts are passing under
neath, and their rattle mixes with the sound of the organ within.
The date of the staircase is clearly somewhere between that
of the chapter-house and that of the church itself It is later
than the church, for it is built up against the transept buttresses,
and it contains some of the best examples of simple geometrical
tracery, while there are nothing but lancet windows in the
church of Reginald and Jocelin. But the simple geometrical
tracery of its two four-light windows prove that it was finished
before the chapter-house was begun. The arches of these
windows are rampant, to follow the level of the stairs ; their
beautiful circular tracery is massive, deeply-moulded, and filled
with remnants of rich glass ; their shafts of blue lias have
naturalistic capitals which are in striking contrast both to the
Early English carving in the church and the full Decorated of
the chapter-house itself Below the windows is a stone bench
rising in steps with a foot-pace of similar construction ; this
arrangement adds much to the effect of the staircase, though it
is marred by a modern hand-rail.
Before the Chain Gate was made, the vestibule ended with a
graceful window of four lights similar to those at the side. The
upper part of the window remains, but the lower part is
occupied by a Perpendicular doorway, and the whole now
forms a screen which, by breaking the light, adds considerably
to the charm of the staircase. Through this doorway, where

Dawkes d^ Partridge, Photo.]

STEPS OF CHAPTER-HOUSE VESTIBULE AND PASSAGE OVER
CHAIN GATE.

THE INTERIOR 137
they are cut away to allow the door to open, the steps
continue for two stages, but in a narrower flight. Here the
windows are Perpendicular, and the vaulted ceiling has given
place to a wooden roof, for this is the Chain Gate, as light and
pretty within as without. It was only an after-thought, a
matter of convenience, thus to connect the chapter-house with
the Vicars' Close, and the screen that now breaks the light had
for a century and a half been the outside window, just as the
blocked window of the transept had been the outer light for
the fifty years before the staircase itself was thought of It
was just a practical matter-of-fact device ; but what magnificent
utilitarianism, what an inspired after-thought !
The main gallery of the Chain Gate is shut off by a door
which, if it were kept open, would make the prospect even
more beautiful than it is. Two corbels which support the
vaulting-shafts of the lower staircase should be noticed ; they
both represent figures thrusting their staves into the mouth of
a dragon, but that on the east (wearing a hood and a leathern
girdle round his surcoat) is as vigorous in action as the figure
on the west side is feeble. A small barred opening in the top
of the east wall lights a curious little chamber, which is reached
from the staircase that leads to the roof
The Chapter-House is entered by a' doirble-arched door
way, the small vault between the arches having an odd boss
composed of four bearded heads. There are marks in the
wall which lead one to think that the doors were hung in a
wooden screen under this vault. The old doors are now used
in the house of the Principal of the College, where they were
identified by Canon Church. They have little slits in them,
through which those in the chapter-house could speak with
those without, who no doubt waited for admittance on the
stepped stone bench of the staircase. Grooves in the two inner
shafts of the doorway seem to have been made for the insertion
of some light screen, by which the entrance was divided into
two passages for ingress and egress. The absence of doors
certainly adds to the rather cold unfurnished appearance of
the chapter-house in its present condition.
The room itself ("a glorious development of window and
vault " it has been called) is one of the best examples of that
type of chapter-house which belongs mainly to the thirteenth
century, and is a peculiar glory of English architecture. Of

138

WELLS CATHEDRAL

octagonal plan, its vaulting ribs branch out from sixteen
Purbeck shafts which cluster found the central pillar, typifying
the diocesan church with all its members gathered round its

Daivkes «V Partridge, Photo ]
CHAPTER-HOUSE— DOORWAY.

common father, the bishop. Each of the eight sides of the
room is occupied by a window of four lights, with graceful
tracery of an advanced geometrical type. These windows,
which are among the finest examples of the period, have no

THE INTERIOR 139
shafts, but their arch mouldings are enriched with a continuous
series of the ball-flower ornament. Most of the old glass, in
which ruby and white are the predominant colours, remains in
the upper lights.
Under the windows runs an arcade which forms fifty-one
stalls, separated into groups of seven by the blue lias vaulting-
shafts at the angles, but in the side which is occupied by the

Dawkes &' Partridge, Photo.] CHAPTER-HOUSE— INTERIOR.
doorway there are only two stalls, one on either side of the
entrance. Two rows of stone benches are under the stalls,
and there is a bench of Purbeck round the base of the central
pier. The arcade strikes one as too shallow : its canopies,
which rest on blue lias shafts, are ornamented with feathering,
crockets, finials, and an interesting series of small heads.
Some of the heads wear crowns, mitres, hoods, and square
caps ; others are grotesque, though I cannot detect the
" jesters " to which some writers refer. Some of the heads
have the same formal twist in the hair as those of the large

I40 WELLS CATHEDRAL
corbels in the nave (p. 8i). The heads on the side opposite
the door are all (with the exception of one modern head in
plaster) covered with the early form of papal tiara, a conical
hat with a crown round its rim. On this side, in the middle
stall, is the bishop's seat, and here are traces of colour; the
little heads are still pretty with pink cheeks and painted eyes
and hair, and above the canopy the saltire of St. Andrew is
discernible. Thus the bishop still retained, at least in theory, the head
ship of the chapter. The dean sat on one side of him, the
precentor on the other, and the rest in due order from the
archdeacons and officers down to those in minor orders. Even
the boys of the school were admitted to part of the meetings,
and they stood on the floor round a desk which was in front of
the chief pastor. "There every morning," says Canon Church
(Chapters in Hist, of Wells, p. 333), "after the prayers of the
third hour and the morning mass, the chapter of the whole
body was held for the daily lection and commemoration of
brethren departed, for maintaining discipline, hearing com
plaints, passing judgment, inflicting punishment ; for ordering
the services of the day and of the week — for sitting in council
and drawing up statutes."
Beautiful as is the general effect of the chapter-house, it
must be admitted that its detail is inferior to that of the stair
case, which is just one stage earlier in the development of
architecture. Nor can its capitals be compared for a moment
with those in the nave ; the lighter form of structure doubtless
calls for a lighter cap, but these are distinctly untidy in
their decoration. The crockets are very near having that
wholesale look which has caused nineteenth-century architects
to make so much of this easily debased ornament. The
arrangement, too, by which the fine doorway rises into a window
of unmodified pattern seems a rather awkward compromise,
especially as the line of the staircase roof cuts slantwise across
the lights. One cannot help thinking that an earlier architect
would have departed from his uniform pattern at this point,
and have inserted a window or arcade better adapted to the
position, with the addition, perhaps, of sculpture in the vacant
space. Between the roof and the vault there is a curious chamber
which reminds one of the crater of a volcano, and the im-

THE INTERIOR

141

pression is increased by the sponge-like stone, which has some
resemblance to tufa. The open arcade under the roof has
served to keep the woodwork in remarkably sound condition.

Dawkes <V Partridge, Photo.]
C HAPTER-HOUSE— VAULT.

The Undercroft. — Much of the external beauty of the
chapter-house, as well as the charm of its staircase, is due to
its unusual height above the ground. It rests upon a vaulted
chamber or undercroft, which is popularly called the crypt.

142

WELLS CATHEDRAL

though that term is not very accurate, as the chamber is riot
sunk underground, but stands almost on a level with the floor
of the church. The innumerable springs in the soil of Wells
do not, indeed, admit of a subterranean building. The under
croft was finished before the chapter-house staircase was begun;
perhaps its walls were built at the end of Jocelin's episcopate ;
at any rate it was finished by 1286, and represents the last
development of the Early English style. It was u.sed as the

Dawkes ifi Partrid^i, I Inlo ]
CHAPTER-HOUSE— UNDERCROFT.
treasury, where the vestments, ornaments, registers, and other
precious things, both of the bishop and chapter, were kept,
and, to increase the security of its massive walls, the sacristan
had to sleep within them every night.
It is reached by a dimly-lit, impressive passage, which is
entered from the north choir aisle through a doorway with
deeply-sunk mouldings and carved capitals. Two heads, slant
ing inwards in a rather awkward manner, support the curious
pediment-shaped canopy over the doorway. At the commence-

THE INTERIOR 143
ment of this fine passage, just within the doorway, is a small
vault supported on extremely odd corbels, as if the mason had
taken advantage of the obscurity to wanton with his craft.
One is a large head with enormous cheeks, apparently suffering
from acute neuralgia; a handkerchief, under which a few
comically-stiff curls escape, covers the head and is tied under
the chin ; another represents two dragons biting each other,
with a head upside down beneath them ; another, which re-

T. «' Phillifs, Photo ]
CHAPTER-HOUSE— UNDERCROFT.
minds one of the worst eccentricities of modern crockery, is
formed by a hand holding a foliated capital. I suppose that
the head with swollen cheeks is really another testimony to St.
William Bytton's power over the toothache. The undercroft
itself was finished before 1286, perhaps some time before; but
the more advanced sculpture of the passage looks as if that
part were built in the "toothache" period — that is to say, some
ten years or so after Bytton's death in 1274.
Certainly the bosses of the vault in the passage beyond the

144 WELLS CATHEDRAL
doorway are of a character that suggests the transition to
Decorated which was in progress at this time. They are
elaborate, and, with one exception, through-carved. The first
from the door represents a head, the next an Agnus Dei, the
next two grotesque heads joined together, then apparently the
Serpent tempting Eve, then an ox, dragons, two small grinning
heads, with animals apparently biting them on one side. The
corbels are carved into heads, some crowned, others reversed
with the shaft in their mouths. On the right-hand side, as
one enters the undercroft, a pretty stone lantern projects from
the wall ; of the little mullions which form its face, one is set
far enough from the wall to admit of the insertion of a lamp.
Two heavy wooden doors at the entrance leave no doubt
as to the purpose for which the undercroft was built. ^I'he
outer door is the most massive ; it is studded with nails, and
has two great bolts and a huge lock : on the outer side a kind
of escutcheon is formed round the keyhole by a heart-shaped
piece of iron, surmounted by a cross; on the same side there is
an iron bar, and the hook to hold it across the doorway. A
deep hole has been worn in the pavement by the feet of those
who pulled open the door. The inner door is lighter, and
ornamented with beautiful elaborate hinges : on this side are
deep sockets in the wall, into which the inner bars were run.
In the undercroft itself the walls are impregnably thick, the
windows narrow, with wide splays. The vaulting, somewhat
later in style than the walls, is an admirable piece of con
struction, well-fitted to bear the weight of the lofty chamber
above. It is also remarkable, Professor Willis points out, for
the way in which the arches are disposed without the intro
duction of ribs. From the round shafts which are grouped
about the octagonal pier in the centre spring the vaulting
ribs, the extremities of which rest upon eight round pillars ;
and another set of vaulting ribs spans the space between
these pillars and the eight walls, where they rest upon twelve
shafts between the lancet windows. Could anything be more
simple and secure in construction, and more varied in effect?
Here, on one of the capitals and on a moulding near the
door, we meet with the dog-tooth moulding usually so
characteristic of the Early English style. The piscina in
the doorway should be noticed for its carving of a dog
gnawing a bone.

THE INTERIOR

145

A large aumbry is formed by a recess in the thickness
of the wall. The parapeted structure opposite is a modern
coal-hole, for which some other place might surely be found.

SECTION OF CHAPTER-HOUSE.

There are several stone coffins in the undercroft, and a good
many fragments of carved stone, some of which are very fine.
Here also is a cope-chest of the usual shape, which allows the
copes to be put away with only one fold. Near it there is a
K

146 WELLS CATHEDRAL
large oblong chest covered with iron bands. An iron door
which is also kept here is thus described by Mr H. Longden
(Archceological Journal, 1890, p. 132): "It is made of slabs
of iron nailed to an oak frame-work, and liberally braced
across with hinges and diagonal cross-straps, stiffening the
door in the best way known at the time. This is not an
iron-plated door, but an iron door ; it is, in fact, a ' safe '
door of the time, and is an uncommon instance. It must be
remembered that the slabs of which this door is formed were
all beaten out of lumps of iron, and that iron was not then
made, as now, in plates, bars, or rods, but . . . The lump
of iron had to be heated and drawn out on the anvil at a great
expenditure of time and labour. Much of the charm of old
work arises from the irregularity of the shapes, never quite
round, or square, or flat, which the iron'' took, and we miss
this in the neat and mechanically-finished work of the present
time."

CHAPTER IV.
HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE.
Legend, which in every ancient city is raised to the dignity
of an article of faith, places the origin of Wells diocese in the
remote past; and the visitor is required to believe that Ina,
King of Wessex, the first great West Saxon lawgiver, the ruler
who finally established the English supremacy in the south
west, was also the founder of the see of Wells. He is said
to have planted a bishopric at Congresbury, and in 721 to
have removed the see to Wells with the help of Daniel, the
last British bishop. The story, however, rests upon no good
foundation. Before the middle of the seventh century the heathen in
vaders were converted by St Birinus, and by the time of Ina
Wessex was divided into the dioceses of Winchester and
Sherborne, the latter including Somerset, Dorset, and part of
Wiltshire. This was all that Ina did towards establishing the
diocese of Wells ; and it did not go very far, for the special
boast of the diocese is that it consists of one county, Somerset,
and of nothing else. And so it is that the honour of possess
ing Ealdhelm, the first bishop of Sherborne, who tramped
about, an open-air preacher, in his diocese, belongs to Salisbury
and not to Wells ; although Doulting, where Ealdhelm fell
sick and died sitting in the little wooden village church, is the
very place whence afterwards the stone was quarried for the
building of Wells Cathedral.
It was under that great warrior, Edward the Elder, that the
diocese of Sherborne was divided, and the Sumorsaetas received
a bishop of their own, whose stool was placed in the church of
St. Andrew at Wells.
It is quite probable that the above tradition grew around
Ina's name owing to his having really established a church
with a body of priests attached to it ; since we find in a
charter of Cynewulf, dated 766, a mention of "the minister
147

148

WELLS CATHEDRAL

near the great spring at Wells for the better service of God in
the church of St. Andrew." This charter is probably spurious,
but it may for all that enshrine an historical fact, especially as
it does not pretend to the existence of a bishopric. If this be
the case, then Edward, who wanted a fairly central church for
a diocese which had no important town, must have found
Wells very convenient for his purpose. For while Glastonbury,
besides being in those days an island, had an abbot of its own,
this little body of secular priests would be ready to receive the

specimens of CAPITALS.

bishop as their chief, and to become his chapter. At all
events, the year 909 saw Wells with a bishop of its own.
Aethelhelm or Athelm, Bishop of Somerset, or Wells
(909-914), a monk of Glastonbury according to tradition, was
the first Somersetshire bishop; he is said to have been an
uncle of St. Dunstan : he was made Archbishop of Canterbury
in 914.
It will be convenient to weave the history of the foundation
of Wells with that of the bishops. So here, at the outset, the
reader must bear in mind that from the beginning the cathedral
church was served by "secular" clergy, by priests, that is, who
were bound by no vows other than those of their ordination,

HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE 149
who did not live a community life, but had each his own
house, and generally at this time his own wife and family.
Wells Cathedral was not " built by the monks," and its chapter
was never composed of monks ; though some of the bishops
belonged to religious orders, it kept up a pretty constant rivalry
with the " regular " clergy of Glastonbury and Bath. It belongs
in fact, to the cathedrals of the old foundation, whose con
stitutions were not changed at the Reformation ; and its chapter
has continued in unbroken succession, from the days when

specimens of CAPITALS.
Aethelhelm first presided over his little body of clergy in the
church of St. Andrew, down to our own time. But at first that
chapter was informal enough, nor was it finally incorporated
and officered till the time of Bishop Robert in the twelfth
century. The number of canons does not seem to have been
fixed, though in the next century we hear of there being only
four or five.
The next five bishops are all little more than names to us.
Wulfhelm succeeded Aethelhelm in 914 : also translated to
Canterbury; Aelfheah (923), Wulfhelm (938), Brithhelm
(956-973). and Cyneward (973-975)-
Sigegar (975-977), a pupil of St. Dunstan, and abbot

I50 WELLS CATHEDRAL
of Glastonbury, was succeeded, or perhaps supplanted, by
Aelfwine, in 997-999.
Aethelstan, or Lyfing; translated to Canterbury 1013.
Aethelwine and Brihtwine shared the episcopate, either
as rivals or coadjutors. Brihtwine was last in possession.
Merewit, also called Brihtwine, succeeded in 1026.
Duduc (1033-1060), a German Saxon. Cnut had given
him the estates of Congresbury and Banwell, which he left to
the church of Wells ; but Harold took possession of them.
Gisa (1060- 1 088), a Belgian from Lorraine, found his see
in a sad condition : the church was mean, its revenues small,
and its four or five canons were forced, he says, to beg their
bread. He at once set to work to increase the revenues ; and
from Edward the Confessor, from his queen, Edith, then from
Harold, and afterwards from William the .Conqueror, he
obtained various estates for the support of his canons.
He also changed the way of living of the canons, and built
a cloister, dormitory, and refectory, thereby forcing them
to live a common life, much as if they were monks — an un
popular innovation which was supported by the appointment in
the foreign fashion of a provost to be chief officer, the canons
choosing for this post one Isaac of Wells.
John de Villula, Bishop of Bath (1088-1122), a rich
physician of Tours. He put an end to the semi-monastic
discipline of Gisa by pulling down his community buildings
and erecting a private house of his own on the site. And he
removed the see of Somersetshire from Wells to the Abbey of
Bath. Godfrey (1 123-1135).
Robert of Lewes (i 136-1166), the second founder of the
cathedral ; he made the constitution of the chapter, he rebuilt
the old Saxon church, and he started Wells as a borough by
the grant of its first charter of freedom. Of a Fleming family,
though born in England, he was a monk from the Cluniac
house of St. Pancras at Lewes ; and to another and more
famous Cluniac monk, Bishop Henry of Winchester, King
Stephen's brother, he owed his advancement. In the very
year of his consecration he began the recovery of Wells from
the low estate in which John de Villula and his rapacious
relatives had left it. He restored their property to the canons,
and, in order to secure it, he divided it off from the property

HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE 151
of the see by a charter of incorporation. He assisted at
Henry II. 's coronation in 1154, and at the consecration of
Thomas h Becket in 1162.
Bishop Robert arranged the quarrel with Bath by settling
that Bath should take precedence of Wells, but that the bishop
should have his throne in both churches, and be elected by the
two chapters conjointly.
By the charter which incorporated the chapter of Wells,
Robert also settled portions of the estate, or prebends, on the
twenty-two canons, and founded the offices of dean, precentor,
chancellor, treasurer, sub-dean, provost, and sub-chanter, all of
which, except the two last, still exist.
After an interval of eight years, Reginald de Bohun or
Fitz-Jocelin, the Archdeacon of Sarum, was consecrated
Bishop of Bath (1174-1191). Immediately afterwards he in
duced the monk who was soon to become famous as St. Hugh
of Lincoln, to leave the Grande Chartreuse, and to come to
England as prior of the first English charter-house. He built
the greater part of the present nave transepts and choir ; for
this end he made large gifts to the fabric fund, and collected
gifts from others. He also extended the privileges of the
town, and increased both the endowment and the number of
the prebends.
Sa'varic, Bishop of Bath and Glastonbury (i 192-1205), a
relation of the Emperor Henry VI. In 1191 he started
with Richard I. for the Holy Land. At Messina, though
not yet in priest's orders, he obtained private letters from
the king sanctioning his appointment to any bishopric to
which he might be elected. Bishop Reginald was a kins
man of his, and, on his election to Canterbury, he obtained
the vote of the convent of Bath for Savaric. The Justiciar
gave at once the royal sanction, in spite of the protests of
the canons of Wells, who had not been consulted. Savaric
had meanwhile wisely established himself at Rome, and was
able to obtain the Pope's consent. He was consecrated
priest one day and bishop the next, but he still remained
abroad. Savaric, supported by the authority of King John, broke
into Glastonbury with soldiers, starved and beat the
monks, and, with great violence, established himself in
possession.

152 WELLS CATHEDRAL
His biography was compressed in a clever epigram : —
' ' Hospes erat mundo per mundum semper eundo.
Sic suprema dies fit sibi prima quies,"
admirably translated by Canon Bernard :
" Through the world travelling, all the world's guest.
His last day of life was his first day of rest."
Yet he was the first to institute the daily mass of Our Lady,
as well as that for the faithful departed, in Wells Cathedral.
Jocelin Troteman de Welles, Bishop of Bath and
Glastonbury, and after 12 19 Bishop of Bath (i 206-1 242), is,
after Ken, the most famous of Wells worthies. He came from
a local stock, and spent all his time and money on the cathedral
church, first as canon, then as bishop for thirty-six years.
In 1208, when Pope Innocent III. laid England under an
interdict, the bishop published it in his own diocese, and
then fled the country, leaving his estates to be seized by
John. On John's submission to the Pope in 1213, he
returned, and two years later stood by Stephen Langton at
Runnymede, putting his name as Bishop of Bath and
Glastonbury to Magna Charta. When John was dead it
was Jocelin who administered the oath to Henry III. at
his coronation.
In 1 2 19 Jocelin made terms with Glastonbury, which
Savaric had seized, giving up the abbacy and the title in
return for four manors. He founded a hospital, re-endowed
the Lady mass which Savaric had instituted, increased the
number of prebends (the estates, that is, which each main
tained a canon) from thirty-five to fifty, provided houses for
the canons, and a regular endowment for the vicars -choral,
started a grammar school in addition to the choristers' school,
and enclosed the bishop's park. But most of all is he famous
for having rebuilt the church which Savaric's vagaries had let fall
into dilapidation, and for having added to it the noble west
front. So extensive were his repairs that in 1239 a reconse-
cration was necessary ; and three years later he died, " God,"
says old Fuller, "to square his great undertakings, giving him
a long life to his large heart." He was buried in the midst of
the choir as a founder of the church ; and as this interment
marked out Wells as the chief church in the diocese, the

HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE 153
monks of Bath were not told of his death till after he had
been buried.
Koger, first Bishop of Bath and Wells (i 244-1 247). On
Jocelin's death in 1242, the monks of Bath made a last effort to
recover the supremacy which had drifted from them. Contrary
to the agreement which had been made, they pushed through
their own candidate, Roger, without consulting with the Wells
chapter, and snatched the regal sanction and papal confirma
tion for their nominee before the chapter of Wells could make
a move. At last, the Pope, after much litigation, decreed
that, in order to avoid any further vacancy, Roger's election
should be confirmed, but that henceforth the chapter of Wells
should have an equal voice in the election of the bishop, who
was to use the ritle of Bath and Wells. Roger was buried
in his old abbey of Bath ; he was, however, the last bishop to
be there interred. The words of Peter Heylin are henceforward
true of the see : — " The diocese of Bath and Wells, though it
hath a double name, is one single bishopric. The bishop's seat
was originally at Wells, where it still continues. The style of
Bath came in but upon the bye."
William Button or Bytton (1248-1264).
Walter Giffard (1265-1266), a statesman-bishop, took the
king's side, and, after the victory of Evesham, was rewarded with
the chancellorship and the archbishopric of York.
William Bytton (the Saint) (1267-1274). When Robert
of Kilwardy, provincial of the Dominicans, was made arch
bishop, he chose Bytton, on account of his saintliness, to
consecrate him ; and so great was the impression made by his
holy life that he became the object of popular canonisation
at his death. Miracles were worked at his tomb, and crowds
flocked to it with offerings, especially such as were afflicted with
toothache. Robert Burnell (1275-1292), the greatest lawyer of his
day, chancellor of Edward I. ; built the hall of the episcopal
palace William of March or de Marchia (1293- 1302), had
been treasurer in 1 290. Two unsuccessful efforts were made
to obtain his canonisation.
Walter de Haselshaw (1302-1308), successively canon,
dean, and bishop.
Under John of Drokensford (1309-1329) the chapter

154 WELLS CATHEDRAL
obtained a strong confirmation of their rights as the result of
a violent quarrel with the bishop, who had claimed the power
of visiting the churches under capitular jurisdiction.
Ralph of Shrewsbury (1329-1363), Chancellor of Oxford,
put the finishing stroke to the constitution of the cathedral by
founding the College of Vicars. He was a great supporter of
the friars, and left them a third of his property. Among his
good deeds he disafforested the royal hunting ground of
Mendip, and thus did great service to the people, " beef," as
Fuller has it, "being better pleasing to the husbandman's
palate than venison." At his death he was buried in the
place of honour before the high altar, for it was under him that
the last great building operations in the church of Wells were
completed. John Barnet (1363-66), translated from Worcester, was
soon again moved to Ely. After John Harewell (1367-86),
who helped to build the south-west tower, and Walter Skir-
law (1386-88), Ralph Erghum (1388-1400) was translated
from Salisbury, and founded at Wells the much-needed college
for the fourteen chantry priests, which was destroyed under
Edward VI., and of which the memory is preserved in " College
Lane." There were now, therefore, three distinct corporations
at Wells — the Chapter, the College of Vicars, and the College
of Chantry Priests. Henry Bowett (1401-1407) was pro
moted to York.
Nicholas Bubwith (1407-1424) is remembered by the
almshouses at Wells which he endowed, by his provision for
building the north-west tower, and by his chantry chapel. There
was at this time another hospital called the Priory, which has
now disappeared. He was one of the English envoys at the
Council of Constance. Mandates were sent him by the arch
bishop for the prosecution of the Lollards, but there is no
record of any proceedings having been taken, till John
Stafford (1425-43) had succeeded him., when one William
Curayn was compelled to abjure and receive absolution for
some very reasonable heresies. Stafford was translated to
Canterbury. Thomas Beckington, or Bekynton (1443-65), was first
tutor, then private secretary to Henry VI., and Keeper of the
Privy Seal. His many works at Wells are noticed in our other
chapters ; in his will he states that he spent 6000 marks in

HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE 155
repairing and adorning his palaces. After his death, the mayor
and corporation showed their gratitude by going annually to his
tomb (p. 125) to pray for his soul.
Robert Stillington (1466-91) was a minister of Edward
IV., and one of Richard III.'s supporters. Accused in 1487
of helping Lambert Simnel, he was imprisoned at Windsor for
the rest of his life. Richard Fox (1492-94), Keeper of the
Privy Seal, translated to Durham. Oliver King(i495-i5o3),
Chief Secretary of Henry VII. A dream moved Bishop
Oliver in 1500, to rebuild Bath abbey in the debased Perpen
dicular style with which we are now familiar.
The celebrated Adrian de Castello (1504-15 18) obtained
first Hereford and then Wells, as a reward for political services.
As he never visited his diocese, his affairs were managed by
another famous man, Polydore Vergil, who was archdeacon,
and furnished the choir of Wells with hangings, "flourished,"
says Fuller, "with the laurel tree," and bearing an inscription.
Sunt Polydori -munera Vergilii. Adrian, who was born of
humble parents at Cornuto in Tuscany, had been made a
cardinal in 1503 by the infamous Pope Alexander VI., and
both his archdeacon and himself are prominent figures in
Italian history of the period.
Cardinal Wolsey (1518-23) was appointed to the see,
which he held together with the archbishopric of York ; he was
therefore Bishop of Bath and Wells only in name, and was soon
put in the enjoyment of the richer sees successively of Durham
and Winchester. He was followed by John Clerk (1523-41)
and William Knight (1541-47). The abbey of Bath was now
suppressed, so that the bishop's seat was now at Wells alone,
and (excepting that the style " Bath and Wells " remained) the
see was restored to its original condition before John de Villuli
migrated to Bath.
William Barlow (1549-54) was translated from St. David's
without even the form of a conge d'elire. In return for this and
certain money payments he made over a large portion of the
episcopal property to the greedy Duke of Somerset ; he also
secured the episcopal manor of Wookey for his own family.
The other cathedral estates were similarly treated. Barlow fled
at the accession of Mary, but was caught and imprisoned in
1554. He had in Henry's time recanted some Lollard tracts
which he had written, and now under Mary he recanted once

156 WELLS CATHEDRAL
more. On the accession of Elizabeth, he (p. 81) accepted the
poorer see of Chichester.
Gilbert Bourne (1554-59) had been Bonner's chaplain.
At Elizabeth's accession he was deprived and imprisoned in
the Tower. After 1562 he was kept in nominal custody, and
died in 1569.
Gilbert Berkeley (1560-1581) succeeded him. Thomas
Godwin (1584-90), the historian of Wells, succeeded Berkeley.
Another three years' vacancy was followed by the appointment
of John Still (1593-1607). He and his successors, James
Montague (1608-16), translated to Winchester, Arthur Lake
(1616-26), a wise man and "most blessed saint," were mostly
occupied in the fight with Puritanism. William Laud was
bishop here for two years (1626-28), but his history belongs to
London and Canterbury, whither he was translated. Leonard
Mawe (1628-29), Walter Curll (1629-32), translated to Win
chester, and William Piers (1632-70) followed. The latter,
who put down the Puritan " lectures," and ordered all the altars
in his diocese to be set against the east wall and railed in, lived
to see all his work undone and then restored again at the
accession of Charles II. Robert Creyghton (1670-72), who
had been dean, succeeded him. He was a great musician
(p. 113), and his gifts of ornaments to the cathedral have been
already mentioned. Peter MewS (1673-1684) was translated
to Winchester.
Thomas Ken (1685-90), the best and most famous of all
the Somerset bishops, has left so great a name in the see, and
figured in so many stirring events, that one can hardly believe
that he was only given five years in which to use his influence
upon history. Before he was made bishop, however, he had
already given proof of that quiet courage which was more than
once to thwart the will of princes. In 1679 he went to the
Hague as chaplain to Mary, the wife of 'William of Orange.
Here he expressed himself " horribly unsatisfied " with William's
unkindness to his wife, and he incurred the Prince's anger by
persuading Count Zulestein to marry a lady whom he had
seduced. Soon after, when he was living at Winchester, he
refused to allow the royal harbinger to use his prebendal house
for the lodging of Nell Gwynn, on the occasion of Charles II. 's
visit there in 1683. Charles, with characteristic generosity,
thought all the more highly of him, and when he was told of

HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE 157
Bishop Mew's death, he said no one should have the see but
" the little black fellow who refused his lodging to poor Nelly."
Before the year was over, Charles was on his death-bed, and
summoned Ken to his side. The bishop persuaded the king to
send the Duchess of Portsmouth from the room and to call in
the Queen. He then absolved him, although Charles would
not receive the communion.
After the Monmouth rebellion (p. 17) he, with the Bishop
of Ely, was sent to tell the Duke of his fate ; he remained with
the wretched man all through the night before his execution,
and accompanied him on the scaffold. He then returned to
his see, used all his influence on behalf of the unhappy peasants,
and by his personal intervention, saved a hundred prisoners
from death. He strongly opposed the Romanising policy of
James II., and preached several sermons which had a large
share in the formation of public opinion. He was one of the
seven bishops who were committed to the Tower for petitioning
the king against the order to the clergy to read the second
Declaration of Indulgence. The incidents of that wonderful
trial are familiar to all Englishmen, and it is notable that one
of the richest dissenters in the city begged to have the special
honour of giving security for the high church bishop of Bath
and Wells.
But when the revolution came. Ken was found among
those who were called non-jurors, because they regarded their
oath of allegiance to James as still binding. He was con
sequently, in 1690, deprived of his see. He made a pubUc
protest in the cathedral against his deprivation, and continued
to sign himself T. Bath and Wells, but he had to live in retire
ment, and with an income of only ;^20 a year. He died in
[710, and was buried in Frome Church at sunrise, in allusion
to his morning hymn (" Awake, my soul, and with the sun "),
and to his habit of rising with the sun.
Ken was in every way a great saint, and, like all the saints, he
was distinguished by his love for the poor, and his care for
their education. Among his customs it is recorded that he
used to have twelve poor men to dine with him on Sundays,
and that he was wont to go afoot in London when the other
bishops rode in their coaches. He wrote many books, among
them his " Manual of Prayers for the Use of Winchester
Scholars." " His elaborate works," says Macaulay, " have

158 WELLS CATHEDRAL
long been forgotten ; but his morning and evening hymns
are still repeated daily in thousands of dwellings."
Richard Kidder (1691-1703) became bishop on the
deprivation of Ken, Dr Beveridge having declined the offer
of a see, the rightful ruler of which had been unjustly removed.
Kidder did not, however, long enjoy his usurped position;
for, on the night of November 26th, 1703, a great storm —
the same that destroyed Winstanley in his lighthouse on the
Eddystone — blew down a stack of chimneys in the palace,
and thus killed both the bishop and his wife as they lay
abed. George Hooper (1704-27), an old friend of Ken, was
next offered the see, Ijut he urged the reinstatement of the
rightful pastor. Queen Anne offered to restore Ken to his
bishopric, but he importuned Hooper to accept, and from
that time ceased to sign himself by his diocesan title. Hooper
had preceded Ken, in 1677, as Princess Mary's spiritual adviser
at the Hague, where he had won her back to the services
of the church, and he had also been with Ken at Monmouth's
execution. Almost as lovable and holy, he was more learned
than his friend.
Hooper was succeeded by John Wynne (i 727-43), Edward
Willes (1743-73), and Charles Moss (1774-1802); afl three
were typical eighteenth-century prelates, rich and mostly non
resident. Richard Beadon (1802-24), was translated from Glou
cester. George Henry Law (1824-45), a son of the Bishop of
Carlisle, and brother of Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough, was
translated from Chester, and is said to have been an active
prelate till his latter years. Hon. Richard Bagot (1845-54)
came to Wells as a place of retirement after the worries which
he had gone through, as Bishop of Oxford, during the
Tractarian movement.
Robert John, Lord Auckland, was translated from
Sodor and Man in 1854. At his death in 1869, he was
succeeded by Lord Arthur Charles Hervey, who died
in 1894. The present bishop is Dr G. W. Kennion, who
was translated hither from the Australian diocese of Adelaide.

Site
AncienI ofS.

PLAN OF WELLS
CATHEDRAL

DIMENSIONS OF THE

CATHEDRAL

Feet

Total length

385

,, of Nave

161

of Choir

103

Breadth of Nave

38

,, ,, with Aisles

82

,, Transepts

13s

Height of Nave

67

Choir

67

, , Towers

160

Breadth of 'West Front

147

Bell's Cathedral Series,
EDITED BY
GLEESON WHITE and E. F. STRANGE.
In specially designed cloth cover, crown 8vo, is. 6d. each.
Now Ready.
CANTERBURY. By Hartley 'Withers. 2nd Edition, revised.
36 Illustrations.
SALISBORY. By Gleeson 'White. 2nd Edition, revised.
50 Illustrations.
CHESTER. By Charles Hiatt. 24 Illustrations.
ROCHESTER. By G. H. Palmer, B.A. 38 Illustrations.
OXFORD. By Rev. Percy Dearmer, M.A. 34 Illustrations.
EXETER. By Percy Addleshaw, B.A. 35 Illustrations.
¦WINCHESTER. By P. 'W. Sergeant. 50 Illustrations.
LICHFIELD. By A. B. Clifton. 42 Illustrations.
NOR'WICH. By C. II. B. Quennell. 38 Illustrations.
PETERBOROUGH. By Rev. W. D. Sweeting. 51 Illustrations.
HEREFORD. By A. Hugh Fisher, G.R.E. 34 Illustrations.
LINCOLN. By A. B. Kendrick, B.A. 46 Illustrations.
'WELLS. By Rev. Percy Dearmer, M.A. 46 Illustrations.
SOUTH'WELL. By Rev. Arthur Dimock, M.A.
In the Press.
DURHAM. By J. E. Bygate. | GLOUCESTER. By H. L. Mass^.
YORK. By A. Clutton Brock, B.A.
Preparing.
ST. DAVID'S. By Philip Robson. I CHICHESTER. By H. Corlette,
ELY. By T. D. Atkinson, A. R.I. B.A. A.R.I. B.A.
WORCESTER. By E. F. Strange. |
ST. ALBANS. RIPON. ST. PAUL'S.
CARLISLE. BRISTOL.
Uniform with above Series.
ST. MARTIN'S, CANTERBURY. By the Rev. Canon Routledge. {Ready.
BEVERLEY MINSTER. By Charles Hiatt. [/« tlu Press.
Opinions of the Press-
"For the purpose at vsfhich they aim they are admirably done, and
there are few visitants to any of our noble shrines who will not enjoy their
visit the better for being furnished with one of these delightful books,
which can be slipped into the pocket and carried with ease, and is yet
distinct and legible. ... A volume such as that on Canterbury is exactly
what we want, and on our next visit we hope to have it with us. It is
thoroughly helpful, and the views of the fair city and its noble cathedral
are beautiful. Both volumes, moreover, will serve more than a temporary
purpose, and are trustworthy as well as delightful." — Notes and Queries.
"'We have so frequently in these columns urged the want of cheap,
well -illustrated, and well -written handbooks to our cathedrals, to take
the place of the out-of-date publications of local booksellers, that we are
glad to hear that they have been taken in hand by Messrs George Bell
& Sons." — St. James's Gazette.
"Visitors to the cathedral cities of England must often have felt the
need of some work dealing with the history and antiquities of the city
itself, and the architecture and associations of the cathedral, more portable
than the elaborate monographs which have been devoted to some of them,
more scholarly and satisfying than the average local guide-book, and more
copious than the section devoted to them in the general guide-book of the

county or district. Such a legitimate need the ' Cathedral Series * now
being issued by Messrs George Bell & Sons, under the editorship of Mr
Gleeson White and Mr E. F. Strange, seems well calculated to supply.
The volumes are handy in size, moderate in price, well illustrated, and
written in a scholarly spirit. The history of cathedral and city is in
telligently set forth and accompanied by a descriptive survey of the
building in all its detail. The illustrations are copious and well selected,
and the series bids fair to become an indispensable companion to the
cathedral tourist in England." — Times.
"They are nicely produced in good type, on good paper, and contain
numerous illustrations, are well written, and very cheap. We should
imagine architects and students of architecture will be sure to buy the
series as they appear, for they contain in brief much valuable information. "
— British Architect.
" Half the charm of this little book on Canterbury springs from the
writer's recognition of the historical association of so majestic a building
with the fortunes, destinies, and habits of the English people. . . . One
admirable feature of the book is its artistic illustrations. They are
both lavish and satisfactory — even when regarded with critical eyes." —
Speaher. "There is likely to be a large demand for these attractive handbooks."
— Globe.
" Bell's ' Cathedral Series,' so admirably edited, is more than a descrip
tion of the various English cathedrals. It will be a valuable historical
record, and a work of much service also to the architect. The illustrations
are well selected, and in many cases not mere bald architectural drawings
but reproductions of exquisite stone fancies, touched in their treatment by
fancy and guided by art." — Slar.
' ' Each of them contains exactly that amount of information which the
intelligent visitor, who is not a specialist, will wish to have. The dis
position of the various parts is judiciously proportioned, and the style is
very readable. The illustrations supply a further important feature ; they
are both numerous and good. A series which cannot fail to be welcomed
by all who are interested in the ecclesiastical buildings of England." —
Glasgow Herald.
"Those who, either for purposes of professional study or for a cultured
recreation, find it expedient to ' do ' the English cathedrals will welcome
the beginning of Bell's ' Cathedral Series.' This set of books is an
attempt to consult, more closely, and in greater detail than the usual
guide-books do, the needs of visitors to the cathedral towns. The series
cannot but prove markedly successful. In each book a business-like
description is given of the fabric of the church to which the volume
relates, and an interesting history of the relative diocese. The books are
plentifully illustrated, and are thus made attractive as well as instructive.
They cannot but prove welcome to all classes of readers interested either
in English Church history or in ecclesiastical architecture. " — Scotsman.
"A set of little books which may be described as very useful, very
pretty, and very cheap .... and alike in the letterpress, the illustra
tions, and the remarkably choice binding, they are ides! guides." —
Liverpool Daily Post.
"They have nothing in common with the almost invariably wretched
local guides save portability, and their only competitors, in the quality and
quantity of their contents are very expensive and mostly rare works, each
of a size that suggests a packing-case rather than a coat-pocket. The
' Cathedral Series ' are important compilations concerning history, archi
tecture, and biography, and quite popular enough for such as i:ake any
sincere interest in their subjects." — Sketch.
LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS.

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