Wells Cathedral: fascinating and beautifully situated

One Exterior View of the Cathedral Church of St Andrew: Wells Cathedral
 As you stand on the green gazing at the west front, having entered via one of the 3 ancient gateways (Brown's Gatehouse, Penniless Porch or Chain Gate) recall that your feet are planted on a graveyard. Your eyes are fixed on a facade of unusually consistent architecture, being almost wholly Early English in style and not a medley as in many Medieval Cathedrals. The stone is Inferior Oolite from the Middle Jurassic period - I love that as I am not even sure if there is a Superior version!
  There are 3 horizontal layers, the bottom one being quite plain. The others showcase 300 sculpted figures - there were 400 originally - which would have been brightly painted in reds, blues and greens as has been deduced from some remaining flakes of colour adhering to them.  This is one of the largest collection of Medieval statues in Europe and the finest display of such carving in England. There are seated and standing people, half-length angels and narratives. The personalities include monarchs, Old Testament prophets and patriarchs, apostles, bishops and other holy individuals, many identifiable by their attributes. There are also the dead, joyful or despairing, emerging from their tombs on the Day of Judgement, some recognisable as royal by their crowns or episcopal by their mitres - although otherwise naked! The sizes reflect importance but the large statue at the very top of Christ in Majesty is a modern replacement of one badly damaged.

Inside

It is impossible in a blog post to describe all the attributes worth noting on the inside but these are the most striking in my opinion.
The scissor (strainer) arches: these are structural in an interesting way since they were inserted to sustain the weight of an extra storey added to the top of the central  tower which caused it to crack and lean. Between 1338 and 48 the master mason William Joy conceived this solution which proved stunning to look at and yet practical. The appearance is of an extra inverted arch on top of the more usual one.
The 'Golden Window' is so called because of the glowing yellow stain given to the 14th century glasswork depicting the Tree of Jesse which shows the lineage of Christ rising from Jesse, symbolising Israel, who lies on his side at the bottom with a tree or vine growing from his side. Wells has one of the most substantial collections of Medieval stained glass in England, despite damage by Parliamemtary troops in the Civil War.
Carvings: in particular, look out for the man with toothache as a capital in the South Transept. He is pointing to the place of pain with his index finger as if showing it to the dentist and is one of 11 such.
The misericords: these are little seats often with carvings underneath, so called because they gave the worshippers a merciful chance to semi-sit during a long service without appearing to do so. In Wells they are particularly fine and date from 1330-1340: 27 depict animals including rabbits, dogs, a puppy biting a cat, a ewe feeding a lamb, monkeys, lions and bats; 18 show mythological subjects such as mermaids, dragons, wyverns and the narrative of the Fox and the Geese. Such unchristian icons may have crept in unobserved, perhaps being the foible of the individual carver.
The Astronomical Clock: in the North Transept is a 24 hour, geocentric clock dating from around 1325, probably the work of a Glastonbury monk, Peter Lightfoot. The original mechanism is now in the Science Museum in London, still working. The Medieval face remains and shows the hours, the motions of sun and moon around a fixed Earth and the phases of the moon. The quarter hours are marked by Jack Blandifers (look upwards to the right) who hits 2 bells with hammers and 2 with his heels as jousting knights appear above the clock face. A second clock, working from the same mechanism, has 2 knights in armour as quarter jacks. In 2010 the official winder retired to be replaced by an electric motor - a pity say I.

Violence and peace:
   Dean Walter Raleigh (nephew of the more famous chap of the same name) was placed under house arrest here. His jailer was a shoe maker and city constable called David Barrett, who caught him writing a forbidden letter to his wife. When Raleigh refused to hand it over, Barrett ran him through with his sword and he died 6 weeks later on 10th October 1646.
   During the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, Puritan soldiers damaged the West front, tore lead from the roof for bullets, broke windows, smashed the organ and furnishings and stabled their horses in the nave.

Look for this in the town

   In 1703, during the Great Storm, Bishop Kidder was killed when 2 chimney stacks on the Palace fell on him and his wife as they lay asleep.
   In July 2009 the Cathedral held the funeral of Harry Patch, plumber and firefighter, British Army veteran of World War I, "the Last Fighting Tommy", who died aged 111 years, 1 month, 1 week and 1 day - at peace after great violence.

 A Very Very Brief History of the name
Fans of Blackadder with be asking about the Bishop of Bath and Wells: after many disputes, Pope Innocent IV established this title in 1245 after the seat had moved between Wells and the Abbeys of Bath and Glastonbury but - it is a bit like saying there is no Father Christmas - none of them ate babies!
There has been a church here since 705 and a shrine in Roman times or even earlier.

The town of Wells is very appealing with the Vicars' Close, (probably the oldest purely residential street  in Europe), some interesting shops as well as the usual suspects and a thriving Wednesday market - but even more enthralling is the Bishop's Palace and gardens which utterly entranced me and which I will write about after a second visit.

I went by public transport from Monmouthshire via Bath and, on the way back, Bristol Temple Meads, and it necessitated an overnight stay but I intend to go again on an organised day coach trip. I have also written about Hereford Cathedral and Gloucester Cathedral and many castles and Roman remains - perhaps you could start with Raglan Castle and nearby Caerleon amphitheatre.
I am grateful to the Pitkin Guide and Wikipedia for information.
For opening times etc click here for the Cathedral website and you can also read my account of the Bishop's Palace and gardens.

Hereford Cathedral: imposing yet intimate

Hereford Cathedral makes a strong impression on the visitor and yet feels friendly with its warm stone and manageable size. The first building on this site some 1300 years ago may have been a modest thatched wooden construction, replaced later by a stone Saxon Cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The second patron saint was King Ethelbert who was brutally murdered by Offa: once his innocence had been established, he was eventually canonised. A bishop named Thomas Cantilupe, became St. Thomas of Hereford in 1320 and had a shrine erected to him - this became a place of pilgrimage. His feast day, 2 October, is still celebrated and you can see a banner showing his history designed by Jean Mobbs commemorating the 700th anniversary of his death. He was believed to have performed 400 miracles but had been excommunicated. When the ban was lifted, his various bones were sent around the country and finally came back here. Then comes St. John the Baptist a statue of whom, wearing his camel-skin coat with its head, can be seen in the north transept.

Look for:

   The corona, a magnificent suspended zig-zag or chevron construct of gilded stainless steel by Simon Beer, which seemed to me a symbol of the Crown of Thorns as it hangs above the central altar.
   A beautiful modern stained glass window in blues, called Ascension, by John Maine which pays tribute to the Special Air Service and its many connections to this neighbourhood..

   Three tapestries designed by John Piper for the 1300th anniversary in 1976 representing the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the Tree of the Crucifixion and the Tree of the Future (Book of Revelation.)
   These are the possessions which made the most impression on me but the Norman pillars in the nave, the misericords, (I always love those as it seems to me they gave the relief of sitting on your suitcase on a crowded train) The Quire, St. John's Walk, The Lady Chapel, The Crypt and the gardens are also of great interest.
  Having a weakness for the sensational, I was particularly enthralled by the fact that the west end and its tower collapsed on Easter Monday, 1786. I always ask myself how ancient architects and builders coped without modern methods and clearly they sometimes failed - perhaps because of earthquakes - although the date is striking. A new west front was designed by James Wyatt but the resulting facade was deemed too plain and was replaced in 1908. The brightness of his nave reflects a movement away from the idea that those churches are best for prayer that have least light.

Mappa Mundi

By kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Hereford Cathedral
and the Hereford Mappa Mundi Trust

   Mappa Mundi (you don't need to add 'the' because it is contained in the Latin term for Map of the World) is part of a separate exhibition along with the Chained Library. It is well worth the viewing but bear in mind it is not a travel map in the modern sense but a representation of the Christian world, centred on Jerusalem, on a single piece of parchment (prepared animal skin) dating from the late 1280's. East is at the top because of its religious significance and it was probably made in Lincoln by monks. (Incidentally, Hereford was never a monastic cathedral and is therefore termed secular).  There are pictures of Biblical and classical events, geographical features, peoples (some of them very strange) plants and animals. It is almost a chart of the Medieval outlook and is amazingly complex.
   You will benefit from a tour of this and the Chained Library which is, as the name suggests, a collection of ancient books with chains attached to their covers at the cut-page end with 2 hasps and a lock. Hand-written books were hugely expensive (remember that Chaucer's Wife of Bath became deaf in one ear by a blow after tearing a book). It is so atmospheric: 'modern' here means post 1801 and most of the books are in Latin though I was fascinated to know that the dictionary of my hero, Dr. Johnson, is on the shelves. These treasures make Hereford Cathedral outstanding.
    What is less well-known, perhaps, is that there is a also a truly modern working library with over 4000 titles available to borrow and a large reference collection. This contains theological works as well as biographies and books on the decorative arts, architecture and music. Visitors are welcome to use it and you can bring your own laptop. If I lived nearer I would inhabit it permanently! There are also unusual archives of Medieval manuscript books, early printed books, music, prints, drawings and photographs. Now that our local libraries are turning into jolly (?) community hubs, this is a rare find.

   I travelled to Hereford by bus from Monmouth and fortified myself with CAKE as usual in the café. Opening hours and other visitor details may be found on the website. You might also be interested in my account of Gloucester Cathedral or one of my castle articles such as that on Goodrich Castle. If you travel by car (tut! tut!) you could spend a lovely afternoon at Hampton Court Castle with its stunning gardens which is about 20 minutes away.