About
The Bishop's Palace at Wells is a moated medieval palace that has been the home of the Bishops of Bath and Wells for some eight hundred years, standing immediately south of Wells Cathedral in the smallest city in England. Building began around 1210 under Bishop Jocelin, whose hall range survives as the oldest inhabited part of the complex, and the site was steadily enlarged across the following century until Bishop Robert Burnell added a vast Great Hall and a private chapel in the 1280s. The palace's most distinctive feature — the moat, the crenellated wall and the gatehouse that make it look more like a castle than a clergyman's residence — was the work of Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury in the 1340s, built after a long and bitter dispute with the citizens of Wells rather than against any foreign enemy.
Burnell's Great Hall did not survive intact. It was stripped of its lead and roof in the sixteenth century and deliberately left to decay, and the resulting roofless shell, with its soaring window tracery open to the sky, is now one of the most striking sights in the grounds. The chapel beside it, by contrast, remains complete and in use, and the Bishop's private apartments and the long gallery of episcopal portraits give visitors an unusually continuous view of a single institution occupying a single site for eight centuries.
Fourteen acres of gardens surround the buildings, including the springs from which the city of Wells takes its name — St Andrew's Well and its neighbours rise within the grounds and feed the moat before flowing on into the city. The gardens are an RHS partner garden and take in an arboretum, a Victorian-style parterre, herbaceous borders and a wildflower area, with the ramparts walk giving views back across the moat to the west front of the cathedral.
The palace is run as a visitor attraction by The Palace Trust, an independent charity established to open the site to the public and to conserve its buildings and landscape. Its best-known residents are the mute swans on the moat, which have been trained since the 1870s to ring a bell beside the gatehouse when they want to be fed — a tradition maintained by successive generations of birds and still performed daily.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- Check the season dates before travelling — the palace closes to general visitors for the winter and is not open year round.
- Walk the ramparts for the best view of the cathedral's west front available anywhere in the city.
- Watch for the swans ringing the gatehouse bell; it happens most often around feeding times, and staff at the entrance can tell you when to expect it.
- Ask about upgrading your day ticket to an annual pass at the till — it costs little more than two visits.
- A joint ticket covering the palace and Wells Cathedral is available if you plan to see both in one day.
- Allow at least two hours if you want to see the gardens properly; an hour covers the buildings alone.
- The late-entry ticket on Fridays after 17:00 is a cheap way to see the gardens in evening light during the summer.
- Paths are gravel and the ground is uneven in places, so wear shoes suited to walking on grass and loose surfaces.
Highlights
The Moat, Gatehouse and Drawbridge
The moat that rings the palace is what makes Wells look, at first glance, like a fortress rather than a bishop's house. It was dug in the 1340s on the instructions of Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury, together with the crenellated curtain wall and the gatehouse with its portcullis and drawbridge, after a prolonged and acrimonious quarrel between the bishop and the citizens of Wells over rights and revenues.
The fortifications were a statement about local authority rather than a defence against invasion, and they worked: the drawbridge was still being raised every night as recently as the 1930s, long after any practical need for it had passed.
The Bell-Ringing Swans
A pair of mute swans lives on the moat and has been taught to ring a bell hung beside the gatehouse when it wants to be fed, a habit first trained into the palace's birds in the 1870s by a daughter of Bishop Lord Arthur Hervey and passed down through every generation of swans since. Visitors often catch the performance from the drawbridge, where the birds tug a cord attached to the bell and wait for staff to appear with food.
It is a genuinely unusual piece of living tradition, and the swans have become one of the best-known sights in the city.
The Ruined Great Hall
Bishop Robert Burnell, Edward I's chancellor, built an enormous Great Hall here in the 1280s, and its roofless shell is now the most photographed structure in the grounds. The hall was deliberately unroofed in the sixteenth century when its lead was stripped for sale, and the decision to leave the ruin standing rather than clear it has given Wells a piece of accidental romantic landscape: tall window openings with their tracery intact, corner turrets, and grass where the floor once was.
Interpretation panels in the grounds explain both the hall's original scale and the circumstances of its destruction.
The Springs That Named the City
Wells takes its name from the springs that rise inside the palace gardens, chief among them St Andrew's Well, which produces a very large volume of water every day and has been the reason for settlement on this spot since long before either cathedral or palace existed. The springs feed a pool in the garden and then the moat itself before running out under the city walls to supply the market place conduit.
Standing beside the well pool is one of the few places in England where the origin of a city's name is not a matter of scholarly inference but something you can watch happening.
Collections
The Bishop's Palace is best understood as a single continuous site rather than a conventional collection: an inhabited thirteenth-century episcopal residence, the ruin of Bishop Burnell's 1280s Great Hall, a complete contemporary chapel, and the fourteenth-century moat, curtain wall and gatehouse that enclose them.
Inside the palace, the long gallery holds a sequence of portraits of the Bishops of Bath and Wells spanning some four hundred years, alongside state rooms furnished for reception use and displays interpreting the building's construction and its long occupation. Outside, fourteen acres of RHS partner gardens include an arboretum, parterre, herbaceous borders and wildflower planting, together with the springs that give the city of Wells its name and still feed the moat.
The Palace Through Eight Centuries
Interpretation across the palace and grounds covering the successive building campaigns from Bishop Jocelin in 1210 to the fortifications of the 1340s and the loss of the Great Hall.
The Bishops of Bath and Wells
The long gallery portrait sequence and associated state rooms, tracing the holders of the see and their relationship with the city.
The Gardens and the Wells
Garden interpretation covering the springs, the moat's water supply and the development of the designed landscape inside the walls.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.