Holiday IV St Cuthbert, Wells

     At the other end of the High St from the cathedral is the Parish Church of St Cuthbert.  As you can see it has a spectacular 122ft high tower.   A tower that alone justifies this separate post.  A Somerset tower too, like those on the cathedral.  Something of a regional specialty; the signs of  a school of local well-trained skilful stone masons. In fact St Cuthbert's was thoroughly re-modelled in the Late Middle Ages, so that from the exterior it looks thoroughly Perpendicular.  The spacious, multi-vista'd  interior with transepts and side chapels however displays the work of an earlier building period: the nave arcades.  Early English in origin, they were (fantastically enough) partially taken down as part of the re-modelling, heightened by some 11ft and then rebuilt, capped with a new clerestory and a spectacular wooden roof.  There is another excellent roof in the southern side chapel.  There are in addition the remains of two mighty medieval reredoses on the east wall of both north and south transepts.  Both lucky survivors even in a mutilated state.  It is a shame then that none of the modern fittings are worthy of the architecture.

Holiday III Wells Cathedral

     The next day we motored over to Wells cathedral - the view you get coming over Bristol Hill is stunning: looking out over the city and cathedral to great stretch of the Somerset Levels, with Glastonbury Tor in the middle distance, like stepping into a mythic landscape, which of course it is.  Wells really is a gem among English cathedrals.  Small but just exquisite.  The craftsmanship is incredible; there are all sorts of figures hiding among the capitals and other carved detail of the Early English nave and transepts.  The chapter house, and those wonderful curving, flowing steps are Geometric Decorated; the architectural critic and historian Alec Clifton Taylor said it was the most beautiful in England.  The Lady Chapel at the far east of the cathedral is Reticulated Decorated; the retrochoir Curvilinear Decorated; the choir, for me the most wonderful part of a building full of wonders, is also Decorated but of a later date still - just at that moment when Curvilinear Decorated begins to freeze into Perpendicular. Look at the tracery.  The towers and the cloisters are fully Perpendicular Gothic.  There isn't any more to say, apart from 'Go!'  You will not be disappointed.  There's even a working Medieval clock with jousting figures to mark the hours.  And the city is pretty lovely too.