Gothic

Wells, Cathedral Church of St Andrew the Apostle. Construction of the cathedral began in 1175 at the east end, with the Lady Chapel, under Reginald de Bohun, Bishop of Bath, who had seen examples of the new Gothic architecture in France. Wells is the oldest purely Gothic cathedral in England and, as work progressed westwards, the architectural style known as Early English was developed. The building was substantially complete by 1239, when it was consecrated, although work remained to be...

Wells Cathedral, main entrance. The figures in the niche above the door had their heads knocked off: they depicted the Coronation of the Virgin. The Virgin and Child in the quatrefoil beneath the arch had their missing heads replaced by the sculptor Arthur James Ayers in 1970

Wells Cathedral, north porch: in the archway a complex chevron-based design alternates with plain mouldings that echo the rounded columns below. The capitals on the right are carved as stiff-leaf foliage, but those on the right depict five episodes in the martyrdom of St Edmund at the hands of the Danes. The two square panels that flank the arch show David rescuing a lamb from the jaws of a lion (left) and a winged griffin (right), both allegorical evocations of Christ

Wells Cathedral: west front from the southwest

Wells Cathedral: the north porch, north transept, Chapter House, and the covered walkway over the Chain Gate that links the cathedral complex to Vicars’ Close

Wells Cathedral, west front: statuary in the central section

Wells Cathedral, west front: detail of carving on the first buttress on the right of the main door. For a detailed account of the sculptural programme see Jerry Sampson, Wells Cathedral West Front: Construction, Sculpture and Conservation (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998)

Wells Cathedral: west front from the northwest. Given that most of England’s medieval sculpture was destroyed in the iconoclasm of the 16th and 17th centuries, the façade of Wells cathedral is extremely precious. Just under 300 of the original 400 sculptures survive: the statues originally in the lowest register were the most accessible and their plinths are consequently empty. Collectively, the sculptures illustrate the course of salvation history

Wells Cathedral, north transept: the clock dial dates from the second half of the 15th c. but is driven by the same mechanism as the older clock inside the cathedral; in the four corners are the symbols of the four Evangelists. Above the dial the two armed knights strike the quarter-hour; between them the motto NE QUID PEREAT – ‘let nothing be lost’; more specifically, as far as the canons are concerned, ‘waste not a minute’

Wells, Somerset, the Market Place: the two archways, Penniless Porch (far left) and Bishop’s Eye, both built c. 1450 by Bishop Thomas Bekynton, give access to the cathedral enclosure

Wells Cathedral: west front, later the same day (English weather). Beneath the towers and the gable the façade is a rectangle twice as wide as it is high: the bases of the towers were built outside the nave aisles, making the front as wide as the transepts

Wells Cathedral, west front gable: at the top the seated Christ and pair of seraphim, the work of David Wynne, were installed in 1985 (little remained of the originals); below are the twelve Apostles, with the cathedral’s patron, St Andrew, slightly taller than the others, in the centre; beneath them are figures representing the nine orders of angels; and below them a series of resurrection scenes, with people rising from their tombs

Wells Cathedral: the south flank of the cathedral, south transept, and central tower

Wells Cathedral: the north transept and central tower