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

by Percy Dearmer

The east end of the north aisle forms a roomy chapel which is dedicated to St. Stephen, and contains a piscina of the same type as those in the neighbouring chapels. Its east window has five lights, and that in the side wall has three, with good reticulated tracery; the principal mouldings are already assuming the large flat hollow form which was to become characteristic of the Perpendicular style. The chapel of St. Catherine on the south side corresponds to it exactly.

The Procession Path, or, to use the uglier and more accurate word, the Retro-choir, is a rectangular space between these chapels and the transepts, on the north and south, and the Lady Chapel and presbytery on the east and west. This space is vaulted; and the vault is carried by four slender piers of Purbeck marble, with attached shafts, in the midst, by a group of Purbeck shafts on each of the two piers which lead into the Lady Chapel, and by the light blue Purbeck shafts of the eastern arches of the presbytery. As two of the middle piers (which are set diagonally from north-east to south-west, and from south-east to north-west) are in a line with the pier-arches of the choir, while the other two, though in a line with those of the Lady Chapel (which themselves project into the Path), are without those of the choir, a complicated system of vaulting and a charming arrangement of piers is the result. Indeed, this exquisite group of piers has never been surpassed, and nothing can be found that better illustrates the subtlety and extreme refinement of the last stages of Gothic architecture at their best. At whichever point one stands fresh beauty is apparent. It is merely a device for connecting Lady Chapel with choir, while leaving a wide path free for processions, yet what a gem of perfection has been drawn from the need! As one sits at the corner near the south wall of the Lady Chapel, one can best appreciate the range of vaulting, which, though it is doubled here, is of the same height as that of the aisles, running faithfully round to cover the ambulatory which encircles the choir, while on either side the pillars soar upward to the higher vault of the Lady Chapel and the yet higher ceiling of the choir. Opposite are the painted fragments of glass in the north choir aisle, seen through the arches of the presbytery, and the windows over the range of tabernacle work in the choir itself. On the left the south aisle can be seen stretching onwards, across the bright break of the transept, to the west end, and on the right are the gorgeous windows of the Lady Chapel. Everywhere the slender pillars stand, and the mouldings branch away from their rich capitals, each doing its appointed work, calculated and exact, in what would seem at first but a lavish profusion of marble shaft and moulded stone. Yet we can hardly now imagine what it all was like before the richly-decked altars were torn down, the painted windows knocked to fragments, the canopies, tombs, and images defaced or destroyed.

The vault is lierned with richly-carved bosses still warm with the marks of gilding; both on the bosses and the capitals the foliage is of the crumpled character suggestive of the oak-leaf.

Unlike the piers of the Lady Chapel, the bases here are of marble, though the plinths are of stone. Two grotesque heads, lower than the bosses, at the north and south-western angles, hold three ribs in their mouths, the ribs, which end there in seeming futility, being used to cover an awkward corner of the vaulting.

Glass in the Choir Aisles and Chapels.—A good deal of glass in a more or less fragmentary condition survives in the eastern portion of the church. It is fine work of the first half of the fourteenth century. In the south aisles there is good glass in all the upper lights; the third window has later glass in the lower lights, which bears the date 1607, and consists of coats of arms and a series of small square pictures of foreign type. The east window of St. Catherine's chapel is composed of fragments fitted together at random; in the upper lights of the south window are rather coarse heads of St. Aldhelm, St. Erkenwald, and other saints: two of them should be noticed for the early form of papal tiara. In the corresponding chapel of St. Stephen both the east and north windows are the same, the north window even containing a second head of St. Erkenwald; the other saints are inscribed—"St. Stephanas Papa" (the Pope Stephen, who died 257), "S. Blasii Epi" (St. Blaise), and "S. Marcellus Papa"; in the topmost light of both windows is a small figure of Our Lord.

In the north aisle, the first window (counting from the east) contains a St. Michael; the next a crucifix and a figure of St. Mary Magdalen, with some sixteenth-century coats (including the curious arms of Bishop Knight, p. [87]) in the lower lights. Similar coats are in the third window, which has a figure of St. John Baptist. The fourth window contains modern glass erected in honour of Bishop Ken (p. [157]), as a memorial to Dean Plumptre, who died in 1891. In the centre Ken is represented in full pontifical vestments, below him angels are supporting his arms impaled with those of the see; over his head is the favourite superscription of his letters, "All glory be to God," and at his feet his rule of life "Et tu quæris tibi grandia? Noli quærere" (Jer. xlv. 5). The left-hand panels represent St. Paul teaching Timothy (because Ken wrote the "Manual for Winchester Scholars," and the "Exposition of the Catechism"), Christ's charge to St. Peter; the right panels represent St. Paul before Agrippa and St. Peter in prison (because Ken was one of the seven bishops imprisoned by James II.). The two lower panels represent labourers going to their work singing Benedicite, and a priest and choristers chanting Nunc Dimittis, in allusion to Ken's morning and evening hymns.

The Lady Chapel was finished in 1326, before the presbytery was added to the present choir, and thus it belongs to the middle of the Decorated period. In plan it is octagonal, the three western sides consisting of the three arches by which it is opened to the rest of the church. It could, in fact, stand perfectly well as a detached building like the Lady Chapel at Gloucester, and doubtless it did so stand while the presbytery was a-building; but its connection with the church itself allows its apsidal west end to be cunningly combined with the beautiful pillars which support the vault of the ambulatory. The arrangement by which these three western sides project into the ambulatory is more easy to see than to describe; from the west side of the piers which support them spring the vaulting ribs of the retro-choir, while on the east side of the piers the shafts rise much higher up to carry the loftier vault of the Lady Chapel. As the chapel is not a perfect octagon like the chapter-house, but is elongated from east to west, this vault was difficult to manage, and its lines are somewhat distorted in consequence. The vault springs from triple shafts between fine traceried windows of five lights, and its ribs meet in a boss containing a beautiful figure of our Lord seated on a throne with outstretched arms; the colour and gilding are well restored.

Professor Willis said that "the polygonal Lady Chapel and the vaulted work which connects it with the presbytery is a most original and unique piece of architecture, of pure and beautiful design." As to the first part of this sentence there can be no difference of opinion, and all will agree as to the fineness of the general effect of the chapel; yet there may well be two opinions as to the purity of the work. I confess that the following criticism (Builder, Aug. 1862) from a lecture of Mr E.W. Godwin seems to me to be not entirely without justification:—"With the single exception of the way in which the vaulting is managed, I look upon this Lady Chapel as no better than the other work of the same date. There is a weakness about the constant recurrence of the same form in the tracery of the windows; the lines of the vault are, in some cases, clumsy to a degree; and the capitals have lost their constructional character altogether. The growth and vitality, the change and joyfulness, so visible in the earlier caps, especially those with figures, are no longer to be seen. Leaves are now stuck on; or, at the best, wreathed round the bell of the capital; and so the function of the capital—the upbearing principle—is lost." So much for its defects. The peculiar excellence of the chapel is that it gives that apsidal ending to the church which adds so much to its beauty both within and without, and yet does not interfere with the square end of the presbytery.