Cloisters To Cathedral Church Of St Andrew

The cloisters date from the early 13th century, though the walks were substantially renewed in three stages during the 15th century: the east range between 1420 and 1435, the west range between 1460 and 1470, and the south range between 1490 and 1508. The cloisters are constructed of Doulting ashlar with pink rubble to the outer walls, and finished with lead roofs.

The inner sides of the cloisters feature two storeys of thirteen bays to both the north and south ranges, and a single storey of eleven bays to the east. These are articulated by buttresses rising to a drip and coped parapet. Each bay on the inner sides is lit by a full-width six-light window with a shallow arch springing from the buttress sides, decorated with Perpendicular tracery and a transom. On the first floors are two flat-arched mullion windows with trefoil heads. Gargoyles project over alternate buttresses on most ranges, though notably absent from the east range.

The north bays are notably narrower and feature shallow-arched doorways. Two low, shallow paired arches with weathered coping project out at bays four and six from the north. The outer walls of the early 13th-century construction remain in pink rubble, formerly rendered, with late 15th-century additions to the upper walls and buttresses. The south range terminates in 14th-century crenellated gables at each end; the eastern gable contains an early 13th-century trefoil-arched entrance with a cinquefoil cusped doorway and an original 13th-century door.

The east range includes a semi-octagonal stair turret at its north end. The three northernmost bays formerly formed the 1488 west wall of the Cloister Lady Chapel and are constructed of ashlar. The outer bays contain four trefoil-arched mullion windows, while the central bay features a doorway beneath a shallow gabled cornice with good tracery panels displaying ogee cinquefoil heads and two upper mullion windows that extend onto the flanking buttresses.

Interior vaulting is particularly fine, with vault shafts bearing mouchettes at the springers of lierne vaults forming octagons with bosses and central carved panels. The west range features an external segmental-arched doorway with stiff leaf capitals four bays from the north, and a Tudor-arched doorway in the first bay from the north. The entrance to the south transept is set to the right of the cloister, with an early 13th-century arch of two orders—one a richly carved foliate arch on banded shafts—surmounted by a Perpendicular panelled ribbed door.

The first-floor library in the east range, dating to around 1430, contains arch-braced cambered tie beams with eleven 13th-century head corbels at the north end and a roll-moulded ridge.

The cloisters contain numerous wall tablets of special interest, predominantly dating from the late 18th and 19th centuries and generally executed in white marble. In the east walk, notable examples include a large baroque cartouche to Richard Healy of 1713 in bay three, and in bay thirteen a plinth memorial to Peter Davis carved in 1749 by Benjamin Bastard of Sherborne, featuring a weeping cherub against a tall dark marble pyramid. Bay seven and eight contain two large carved bosses from Stillington's chapel. The south walk features a plain inscribed tablet to Bishop Creyghton (died 1672) surmounted by a bishop's mitre in bay eight, and in bay thirteen a full-height monument to Bishop George Hooper (died 1727), the finest in the cloister, incorporating cherubs, supporting columns and an open baroque pediment. The west walk contains a large high-relief figure in white marble on a plinth to John Phelips (died 1834) in bay six, signed by Chantrey.