Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Wells Part 8

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 Jocelin, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Bishop's Palace.]

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 pa.s.sages to staircase and to chapel at either end. The wider chamber within the wall is lighted by plain lancet windows, 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 pillar in the centre; and to the east of the chamber a small room projects beyond the ground plan of the building, with a s.p.a.ce 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 wardrobe. The windows in the gallery were restored by Mr Ferrey 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 pa.s.sage at the west end led between b.u.t.tery 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; 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 (1608-16), 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 ad introitum de le palays_, and the parlour (_parlurum_) 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 altered. The upper storey, the porch, the b.u.t.tresses 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 (110 ft. by 25) and the number of its b.u.t.tresses. Simple in character, stately in proportions, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 pa.s.sed into dinner.

Over the hall are guest chambers with fine windows; and behind the part.i.tion 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 Proceedings_ 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 CHOIRMASTER'S HOUSE, at the east end of the cathedral, 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 part.i.tions. It is now the residence of the Princ.i.p.al 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 retains 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 is kept open during the daytime, 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 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 cla.s.s, 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 Perpendicular, and the groined vault under the belfry appears to be an imitation of the Decorated vault of the cathedral."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 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.

[2] Vol. i. 421.

[3] _History of the Cathedral_, 125.

[4] 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.

[5] _Cathedrals_, iv. 98.

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 1174; 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 character 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 p.r.o.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 architectural evidence, were it not for G.o.dwin's a.s.sertion, that Jocelin had entirely pulled down the old church and built a fresh one.

But now we have got behind G.o.dwin, and have found from contemporary evidence that Bishop Reginald commenced the present church. Thus we are able to divide the Early English work into no less than four periods, (1) 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 ma.s.siveness and severity." The characteristics of this late twelfth-century work are bold round mouldings, square abaci, capitals, some with traces of the cla.s.sical volute, others interwoven with fanciful imagery that reminds us of the Norman work of Glas...o...b..ry; 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 intermingling 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 Perpendicular 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 supposed. 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 axe.

[Ill.u.s.tration The Nave.]

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 160, possesses an unusual attraction for the eye. It is free both from mutilation 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 161 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 135 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 compared 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 s.p.a.ce thus gained is used to give one additional opening 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 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, h.o.m.ogeneous 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 s.p.a.ces 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 undercut, 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, 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 accordance with the original plan; and we may well be grateful to him for his modesty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Capital--the Fruit-stealer's Punishment.]

All the carving is most interesting and beautiful: the caps and corbels of the vaulting-shafts; the little heads at the 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 architectural purpose. Those in the transepts are perhaps the best (p. 89), but the following in the nave should not be missed:--

_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.