Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Wells / A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See

by Percy Dearmer

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 with a crown. Cockerell therefore attributed it to St. Peter, and said that the crown showed Bishop Jocelin's papistical tendencies! Planché scoffed at this, remarking with truth that none of the Apostles are ever represented with crowns, but he caused even greater confusion by suggesting that the figure stood for a Saxon king, and that the tier, in spite of 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 photographs this is still clearer, the Apostle's head being evidently covered by nothing more imposing than his own long hair or a veil like that of the preceding 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 remains. 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 1386. The northern tower was built 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 reduction in bulk, two-thirds of their height and then finished with small pinnacles. There are, however, certain slight differences 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 compartments, each division being marked by a small pinnacle, and the turrets by large compound pinnacles. It is an interesting 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 undertook, 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 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.