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© Mr John H. Sparkes
IoE Number:
483311
Location:
GATEHOUSE AND SOUTH BOUNDARY WALL TO THE OLD DEANERY, CATHEDRAL GREEN (north side)
WELLS, MENDIP, SOMERSET
Photographer:
Mr John H. Sparkes
Date Photographed:
01 August 2007
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
662-1/7/40 (North side)
12/11/53 Gatehouse and south boundary wall to
the Old Deanery
(Formerly Listed as:
CATHEDRAL GREEN
(North side)
The Old Deanery)
GV I
Gatehouse and boundary walling. C15 much restored. Gatehouse
has ashlar ground floor and dressings, with coursed rubble
above, gabled Welsh slate roof behind battlemented parapets.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, 2 bays. Lower bay 1 has a moulded
4-centred waggon arch with a pair of wooden doors which may be
at least partly medieval; bay 2 a matching pedestrian arch,
above are chamfer-mullioned and transomd 2-light windows with
cinquefoil cusping and square labels, between bays a corbelled
chimney stack, cropped at the lower edge of the parapet.
The inner elevation has a wider segmental arch embracing both
bays, above which, towards the east end, is a 2-light window
without transom, small stair turret to north-west corner. The
soffit over the archway has 2 heavy chamfered beams and
plastered panels. In the wall to the right at ground floor is
a small rectangular light, and a 3-plank door with stopped
moulded frame in a 4-centred flush opening.
INTERIOR: the ground floor has a bedroom, part of a former
stable, with wide braced plank and batten door under a 16-pane
transom-light, and a 3-light stone casement with C17
ovolo-mould mullions and early leaded glazing. The entrance
has a fine overlapping 3-plank door, and under the staircase
is a 4-panel C17 door, with raised fielded panels on the
reverse; over the stair is a deep beam with lamb's-tongue
stop. The first floor single room has in the S wall a stone
fire surround with chamfered square opening; above this is a
floating mantelshelf with a brattished cornice, carried on 3
conical brackets, possibly statue bases.
In the SW corner is an entrance to a former privy, with
hinge-pin, and from the NW corner is a stone spiral staircase
with stone pinnacle.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: extending to the E is a high random
rubble wall with ashlar crenellated coping, with a 4-centred
moulded arched doorway giving to the Wells Museum (qv), at the
eastern end, and finishing to a straight joint. A double wall
extends westwards for about 12m to the Old Deanery (qv), and
beyond this a further 20m of high wall to match, with gateway
(possibly C20) into the former herb garden of William Turner
(1508-1568); this also finishes to a straight joint.