The Chapter House is a beautiful octagonal building, each side measuring fifty feet. Its finely groined roof is held up by a central clustered column of Purbeck marble. Beneath it there is a crypt displaying a very good example of plain groining.
The foundation of the present Cathedral was laid by Wiffeline, the second bishop of the diocese, and completed by Bishop Joscelyne in 1239. This cruciform structure was dedicated to St. Andrew. On the south the cloisters form three sides of a quadrangle. The prevailing style of the architecture of this church is the Early English, with the introduction of the Decorated and subsequent periods.
The west front is divided into compartments by buttresses, and is richly embellished with canopied niches, containing statues of kings, popes, cardinals, bishops, and abbots. Even the mullions of the west window and the lower stages of the western towers are similarly treated. These towers, like the central tower, are crowned with parapets elegantly pierced. The nave and transepts display the grand simplicity and elegance of the Early English style. The former is separated from the aisles by a series of clustered columns and finely pointed arches, above which are placed a triforium of lancet-shaped arches, and a range of clerestory windows with elegant tracery in the Later English style inserted.
The choir belongs to the Decorated style.
The Cathedral contains several chapels. In one there is the ancient clock from Glastonbury. It has an astronomical dial, and figures of knights in armour are set in motion by machinery. An ancient font in the south transept is of the same date as this portion of the Cathedral.
Of monuments there is the elaborate effigy of Bishop Beckington; and in the choir the grave-stone of Bishop Joscelyne is the sole relic of what was once an imposing marble monument bearing a brass effigy. In the centre of the nave King Ina was buried.
The hall, by Villula, was demolished in the reign of Edward VI. for the sake of its materials. Its remains even now clearly indicate its original splendour. In length it was one hundred and twenty feet.
On the dissolution of the monasteries Henry VIII. remodelled the then existing establishment and refounded it. This monarch's name reminds us that Cardinal Wolsey and Archbishop Laud were prelates of this see. The eminent historian, Polydore Vergil, was archdeacon in the sixteenth century, and in the year 1634 was born in this city pious Dr. George Bull, Bishop of St. David's.