About
Wells Cathedral, rising above the smallest city in England, is widely regarded as the earliest completely Gothic cathedral in the country — a pioneering building of the late 12th century in which the pointed arch and vertical emphasis of Gothic design replaced the rounded forms of the Romanesque for the first time in English ecclesiastical architecture. Construction began around 1175 under Bishop Reginald de Bohun, and the cathedral's identity as an architectural trailblazer is visible immediately upon approach: the great West Front, completed around 1240, presents a screen of niches and gables populated by more than 300 surviving medieval carved figures — the largest collection of medieval sculpture anywhere in England outside Westminster Abbey — a breathtaking tapestry of biblical saints, angels, apostles, and crowned kings that was once painted in vivid colours.
Within the cathedral, the most immediately astonishing feature is the pair of scissor arches — enormous inverted arches inserted at the crossing around 1338 by master mason William Joy to stabilise the tower, which was subsiding under the added weight of a new upper storey. The solution is among the most dramatic and inventive pieces of structural engineering in medieval Europe: two arches interlocked in an hourglass form that simultaneously solved a structural crisis and created one of the most memorable architectural spectacles in England, a view that stops visitors in their tracks the moment they enter the nave. The effect is of a great stone figure-eight, both structurally logical and visually extraordinary.
Beyond the scissor arches, Wells offers a series of intimate wonders. The Chapter House is reached by a remarkable fan-vaulted staircase — worn concave by 700 years of use — ascending to an octagonal chamber with a palm-tree vault of exceptional beauty. The cathedral clock, dating from around 1390 and one of the oldest in England, features jousting knights and the figure of Jack Blandiver who strikes the bells with his heels. In the town outside, Vicars' Close — a complete medieval residential street built around 1350 — runs directly from the cathedral, the oldest continuously inhabited planned medieval street in Europe.
Admission to Wells Cathedral is free with a suggested donation, making this treasury of medieval art and architecture accessible to all. The adjacent moated Bishop's Palace, one of the oldest continuously inhabited houses in England, is separately ticketed and provides an outstanding complement to a cathedral visit. Wells is justly regarded as one of England's finest ecclesiastical landscapes — intimate in scale but inexhaustible in its architectural and historical rewards.
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Annual Visitors (2019)
250,000
Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
📅 Best Times to Visit
Quietest: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
Busiest: Saturday, Sunday
💡 Weekday mornings (09:30-11:30) for the quietest experience. Attend Choral Evensong — typically 17:15 — for a sublime musical experience in this extraordinary acoustic space.
💡 Visitor Tips
- Spend time standing at the west end of the nave looking east — the scissor arches, glimpsed through the nave, are one of the great theatrical architectural reveals in England. Let your eyes adjust before moving forward.
- Walk the full length of Vicars' Close, north of the cathedral — it takes less than 10 minutes but puts you directly in 14th-century England in a way few places in the world can match.
- Arrive before 10:00 on a weekday to have the Chapter House staircase largely to yourself. This moment of ascending the worn medieval steps is one of the most moving experiences Wells offers.
- Attend Evensong (typically 17:15) — free to attend, and the cathedral acoustic combined with the choir is sublime. Check the website for the week's schedule as there are occasional breaks.
- Combine the cathedral with a visit to the Bishop's Palace (separate ticket) — the two together make a full half-day. The palace garden with its natural springs is one of Somerset's finest.
- Look up at the West Front from across Cathedral Green before entering — the full expanse of medieval sculpture is best appreciated from a distance of about 40-50 metres.
- The Cathedral shop has an excellent range of books on Wells and Somerset's medieval heritage — better than most local bookshops for this specialist subject.
Highlights
The Scissor Arches
Wells Cathedral's scissor arches are one of the most startling and inventive structural solutions in medieval European architecture. When the central tower began to subside around 1338 under the weight of a new upper storey, master mason William Joy devised an unprecedented solution: three pairs of enormous inverted arches inserted at the crossing, interlocking in an hourglass form that distributes the tower's load across a wider area.
The result simultaneously solved a structural crisis and created one of the great visual spectacles of English Gothic — a sight that stops visitors dead when they enter the nave.
Whether experienced from the west end, the choir, or from below the tower itself, the scissor arches are unforgettable: structurally logical and visually extraordinary in equal measure.
The West Front — Medieval Sculpture Gallery
The West Front of Wells Cathedral is a visual encyclopedia of the medieval Christian world. Completed around 1240, it presents a horizontal screen of more than 400 niches and gables, still populated by over 300 surviving carved figures — saints, apostles, bishops, kings, and angels — making it the largest collection of medieval sculpture in England outside Westminster Abbey.
Originally painted in brilliant colours with gilded highlights, the facade would have blazed like a jewel in the Somerset light.
Even today, weathered and softened by eight centuries of exposure, it remains one of the most remarkable achievements of medieval craftsmanship — a stone gallery 50 metres wide that tells the entire story of Christian salvation in carved limestone.
The Chapter House and Its Staircase
The route to Wells's Chapter House is itself a highlight: an extraordinary early 14th-century staircase, worn concave by 700 years of use, whose steps divide midway and sweep around either side into an octagonal antechamber. The Chapter House itself is a masterpiece of late Decorated Gothic — an octagonal room with a central column from which 32 ribs spring outward to form a palm-tree vault of breathtaking complexity.
The tracery in the windows follows organic, flowing patterns characteristic of the Decorated style at its most exuberant.
This is a room that rewards slow, careful looking: every detail, from the corbels to the window seats, reflects the consummate skill of the late 13th-century masons who created it.
The Cathedral Clock
Wells Cathedral's clock, dating from around 1390, is one of the oldest church clocks in England and certainly one of the most characterful. The dial, on the north transept wall, shows not only the hours but also the minutes, the phases of the moon, and the position of the sun — an ambitious medieval scientific instrument.
But it is the automata that delight visitors most: on the quarter-hour, mounted knights joust around a circular track above the clock while the figure of Jack Blandiver, seated high on the wall, strikes the bells with his heels and a hammer.
The interior mechanism, dating from c. 1390, is among the most complete medieval clockworks surviving in England — a companion piece in horological importance to the Salisbury clock.
Collections
Cathedral Treasury
Collection of historic plate, vestments, and ecclesiastical objects illustrating the cathedral's liturgical history from medieval to modern times.
📍 Treasury, South Transept
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.