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© Mr John Barker
IoE Number:
483286
Location:
CHAPTER HOUSE TO CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST ANDREW, CATHEDRAL GREEN (east side)
WELLS, MENDIP, SOMERSET
Photographer:
Mr John Barker
Date Photographed:
11 April 2006
Date listed:
12 November 1953
Date of last amendment:
31 May 2000
Grade
I
The Images of England website consists of images of listed buildings based on the statutory list as it was in 2001 and does not incorporate subsequent amendments to the list. For the statutory list and information on the current listed status of individual buildings please go to The National Heritage List for England.
WELLS
ST5445 CATHEDRAL GREEN
662-1/7/33 (East side)
12/11/53 Chapter House to Cathedral Church of
St Andrew
(Formerly Listed as:
CATHEDRAL GREEN
Cathedral Church of St Andrew
(including Chain Gate and Cloisters))
GV I
Chapter House. 1290-c1307. Doutting ashlar with blue Lias
dressings, some Purbeck marble internal dressings; lead roof.
EXTERIOR: octagonal with deep angle buttresses, set back mid
height with gargoyles to attached pinnacles above, with a
weathered band above, with a weathered band above the
undercroft, and an arcade of 2-light lancets beneath a parapet
of pierced quatrefoils.
Each face has 2 chamfered arched windows to the undercroft,
and a full-width 4-light window with Decorated tracery and an
ogee hood. Stair passage up from the N chancel aisle has a
moulded parapet, with 2 4-light windows.
The stairway to the Chapter House and Chain bridge (qv) of 2
bays with Purbeck marble vault shafts, those at the bottom of
the stair on good carved figure shafts and spherical capitals
to the W windows, and a Tudor-arched doorway at the top in a
square frame beneath a 2-light Decorated tracery set within an
arch of 3 orders as the windows. To the W side are stepped
seats, to the E the steps curve off to a 2-bay-wide vaulted
lobby with open cusped entrances with cusped trefoils above
and panelled walls, and Purbeck marble shafts.
The Chapter House has vault shafts in the angles to a fine
tierceron vault with a central octagonal shaft with 36 ribs,
and spherical foliate bosses; the central shaft has a Purbeck
marble bench, the sides have 2 tiers of wall benches, an
arcade of gabled seat niches, and a surround of ball flowers
to the windows.
The early C13 undercroft, formerly the treasury, has a central
octagonal column with attached shafts, 8 intermediate round
shafts, and vault shafts, all with hollow-moulded capitals,
and rere arches, with a piscina by the door and a carved dog.
The mid C13 doorway from the N aisle has a depressed arch and
a bar tracery open gable on head stops above, and fine C13
doors with scrolled ironwork; 3 bay passage from the aisle has
a sexpartite vault, stiff leaf capitals and good pictorial
bosses, with head corbels on the E side.
INTERIOR: not inspected.