Description

WELLS

ST5445 CATHEDRAL GREEN
662-1/7/41 (North side)
12/11/53 Wells Museum

GV II

Former Chancellors' House, now museum. C15 origins, but mostly
C17, C18 and C19 work, much of the front being remodelled
c1828. Rendered with stone dressings, Welsh slate roofs with
shaped stone ridges between coped gables, rendered and stone
chimney stacks.
PLAN: U-plan, possibly began as a hall house, with service
wing to the left, and parlour to the right, but now with
2-storey centre having a broad entrance hall backed by a
generous lateral staircase, and the wings substantially
remodelled or rebuilt.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys with attics at ends; south facade has 3
bays between projecting wings, with porch in SW corner.
Plinth, moulded strings and copings to gables, which have
console kneeler brackets. West end gable has large angled bay
window to ground floor with stepped hipped lead roof, and with
lancet-panelled frieze under window, having 8-pane sash
windows with 4-centre arched heads to each face, first floor
has a small single-light window, east gable similar but with a
single matching 8-pane sash window to ground floor, set under
a label, again with frieze under sill. Central bays have pairs
of 12-pane sash windows in plain architraves, linked to bays 1
and 2 and separate in bay 3; first floor has Venetian windows
to match of 8 + 12 + 8 panes with radial glazing to centre
units; left of bay 1 the porch, single storey, with matching
gable and 4-centre-arched doorway with pair early C19 doors,
small single-light window with square label over.
In the west flank of the east projecting wing is a 4-light
chamfer-mullioned window with early glazing at low level, with
a similar blocked window near the outer corner.
INTERIOR: the low-ceilinged entrance hall opens to a generous
staircase hall with wide early C19 lateral stair having stick
balustrade and swept mahogany handrail, and scrolled ends to
open treads; the rear wall has a fine Palladian window with
linings, and there is a coved cornice.
The suite at first floor, left, has a grand front salon
completed in Gothic Revival style with slightly bowed ends,
panelled doors and linings, a coved cornice with continuous
inset frieze of formalised leaves, and a marble fireplace in
the W wall.
The ante-room is similarly detailed, and has, in the W wall, a
large 12-pane sash plus side-lights, intersecting Y-bars and
some tinted glass, and with original shutters. Sections of
deeply-chamfered beams to rear. C17 roof trusses using earlier
material.

Listing NGR: ST5507245938

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q99662850

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

• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)