The Great West Front,
Wells Cathedral.
Photo: 30 April 2014.
Source: Own work.
Attribution:
Photo by DAVID ILIFF.
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
Author: Diliff
(Wikimedia Commons)
Text from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia,
unless stated otherwise.
The Bracing Arches are known as “Saint Andrew’s Cross Arches”, in a reference to the Patron Saint of the Cathedral. They have been described by Wim Swaan – rightly or wrongly – as “brutally massive” and intrusive in an otherwise restrained Interior.[6]
Lady Chapel and Retro-Choir.
Wells Cathedral has a square East End to the Choir, as is usual, and, like several other Cathedrals, including Salisbury and Lichfield, has a lower Lady Chapel projecting at the Eastern End, begun by Thomas Witney about 1310, possibly before the Chapter House was completed.
The Lady Chapel seems to have begun as a free-standing structure in the form of an elongated octagon, but the Plan changed and it was linked to the Eastern End by extension of the Choir and construction of a second Transept, or Retro-Choir, East of the Choir, probably by William Joy.[116]
The Lady Chapel has a Vault of complex and somewhat irregular pattern, as the Chapel is not symmetrical about both axes. The main Ribs are intersected by additional non-supporting, Lierne Ribs, which in this case form a star-shaped pattern at the apex of the Vault. It is one of the earliest Lierne Vaults in England.[116]
The view through William Joy’s Retro-Choir into the Lady Chapel has been described as “one of the most subtle and entrancing architectural prospects in Europe”.[116]
Photo: 9 December 2008.
Source: Own work.
Author: Mattana
(Wikimedia Commons)
There are five large windows, of which four are filled with fragments of Mediæval Glass.[116] The tracery of the windows is in the style known as Reticulated Gothic, having a pattern of a single repeated shape, in this case a Trefoil, giving a “reticulate” or net-like appearance.[116]
The Retro-Choir extends across the East End of the Choir and into the East Transepts. At its centre, the Vault is supported by a remarkable structure of angled Piers.
Two of these are placed as to complete the octagonal shape of the Lady Chapel, a solution described by Francis Bond as “an intuition of Genius”.[117]
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The Eastern Bays of the Choir (1329 – 1345) showing the Reticular Vault and the Gallery of Saints beneath
the Great East Window[113]
Photo: 11 February 2008.
Source: Wells Cathedral, Somerset
Attribution:
This file is licensed under the
Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence.
Author: IDS.photos from Tiverton, UK
(Wikimedia Commons)
The windows of the Retro-Choir are in the Reticulated Style, like those of the Lady Chapel, but are fully Flowing Decorated in that the tracery Mouldings form Ogival curves.[116]
The Chapter House was begun in the Late-13th-Century and built in two stages, completed about 1310. It is a two-storeyed structure with the main Chamber raised on an Undercroft.
PART TWENTY FOLLOWS.
