The city of Wells, which we now visit, has a romantic situation on the
southern slope of the Mendip Hills, twenty miles equi-distant from Bath,
Bistol, and Bridgewater. It takes its name from the ancient well dedicated
to St. Andrew, which rises within the Episcopal grounds, and runs through
the city down the sides of the principal streets in clear, sparkling'
streams.
There is no place which, taken altogether, preserves a more antique air of
tranquil seclusion than Wells. In the precincts of Chester Cathedral, and
at many other points in England, there broods the same antique calm, but
here the whole place is pervaded by this reposeful spirit of the past; and
this culminates in the neighborhood of St. Andrew's Cathedral, the
bishop's palace, the old moat, the conventual buildings, and the three
venerable gates, or "eyes," as they are called, of the cathedral yard. The
moat about the bishop's palace, overhung by a thick curtain of aged elms
mingled with ivy, growing like a warrior's crest upon the high-turreted
interior walls, and reflected in deep shadows in the smooth, dark mirror
of the water, has a thoroughly feudal look, which is heightened by the
drawbridge over the moat, and the frowning castellated gateway. How
strange the state of society when a Christian bishop lived in such
jealously armed seclusion, behind moated walls and embattled towers! What
a commentary, this very name of "the close"! One of these old bishops was
himself a famous fighting character, who, at the age of sixty-four,
commanded the king's artillery at the battle of Sedgmoor....
The Cathedral of St. Andrew was built upon the site of a still more
ancient church founded by Ina, king of the West Saxons in 704. It also
goes back to a remote antiquity, for its choir and nave were rebuilt in
the middle of the twelfth century. The central tower, which is the noblest
and most finished part of the structure, is of the early English style to
the roof; the upper part is of the Decorated, with a mixture of the early
Perpendicular styles. It has an elegant appearance from its rich
pinnacles, and is of a softened and gray tint. Beginning to show signs of
sinking, it was raised in the fourteenth century, and was strengthened by
the introduction beneath it of inverted buttressing-arches, which give to
the interior a strange effect. These arches, architecturally considered,
are undoubtedly blemishes, but they are on such a vast scale, and so bold
in their forms, and yet so simple, that they do not take away from the
plain grandeur of the interior. They are quite Oriental or Saracenic. The
top of the eastern window is seen bright and glowing over the lower part
of the upper arch. The west front, 235 feet in length, has two square
towers, with a central screen terminated by minarets, and is divided into
distinct compartments of eight projecting buttresses; all of these
projections and recessed parts are covered with rich sculpture and
statuary, of which there are 153 figures of life-size, and more than 450
smaller figures....
The other most striking features of Wells Cathedral are the Chapter House
and the Ladye Chapel. The first of these, on the rear of the church, is an
otagonal structure with pinnacled buttresses at each angle. It is
approached from the interior by a worn staircase of 20 steps of noble
architectural design. Among the grotesque carvings that line the
staircase, I remember in particular one queer old figure with a staff, or
rather crutch, thrust in a dragon's mouth, supporting a column. While thus
holding up the cathedral with its head and hand above, and choking a
writhing dragon beneath, he looks smiling and unconcerned, as if it were
an everyday affair with him, as indeed it is. The whole church abounds in
these old sculptures, little demoniac figures with big heads, faces with
enormous fish mouths, old men with packs on their backs, and angels with
huge armfuls of flowers. They seem to let one into the interior chambers
of fancy, the imaginative workings of the human mind in the middle
ages....
Wells Cathedral, on the whole, is distinguished for a dignified but rich
simplicity, arising from its plain large surfaces, mingled and edged here
and there with fine-cut and elegant ornamentation. The court and buildings
of the Wells Theological College have a thoroughly quaint, old-fashioned
look, quiet, rigid, and medieval; as if the students reared there could
not but be Churchmen of the "Brother Ignatius" stamp, gentlemen, scholars,
and--priests. I can not leave Wells without speaking of the two splendid
"cedars of Lebanon" standing in the environs of the church. They are not
very tall, but they sweep the ground majestically, and grow in a series of
broad, heavy masses of foliage, gracefully undulating in their outline.