Description

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))

I

Chapter House. 1290-c 1307. Doulting 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 two-light lancets beneath a parapet of pierced quatrefoils.

Each face has two chamfered arched windows to the undercroft, and a full-width
four-light window with Decorated tracery and an ogee hood. Stair passage up from the north chancel aisle has a moulded parapet, with two four-light windows.

The stairway to the Chapter House and Chain bridge (qv) of two bays with Purbeck marble vault shafts, those at the bottom of the stair on good carved figure shafts and spherical capitals to the west windows, and a Tudor-arched doorway at the top in a square frame beneath a two-light Decorated tracery set within an arch of three orders as the windows. To the west side are stepped seats, to the east the steps curve off to a two-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 two 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, eight 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 north aisle has a depressed arch and a bar tracery open gable on head stops above, and fine C13 doors with scrolled ironwork; three bay passage from the aisle has a sexpartite vault, stiff leaf capitals and good pictorial bosses, with head corbels on the east side.

INTERIOR: not inspected.

This entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 20 February 2018.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17529928

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Farrow & Ball How to Decorate: Transform your home with paint & paper
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  County Durham (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by Elizabeth Williamson Nikolaus Pevsner(1983-03-11)