1-13, VICARS' CLOSE

This terrace comprises 13 houses, originally 21, forming the eastern side of Vicars' Close. Built from around 1360 for Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury, the properties underwent significant modifications in the 15th century, probably under Bishop Bekynton, when the chimney shafts were renewed. Various rear extensions were added during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, with considerable replacement of windows and doors in the 18th and early 19th centuries. A major restoration took place between 1976 and 1983, commemorated on a plaque near the southern end of the boundary wall.

Construction and Materials

The terrace is built of rough squared local rubble with Doulting ashlar dressings and chimney shafts. The front roof slopes are covered with slate, while pantiles are generally used at the rear.

Original Plan and Alterations

Each house originally had a ground-floor hall approximately 6 metres by 4 metres, with a projecting winder staircase at the rear leading to an upper hall of the same size. Both floors had fireplaces in the front wall. Each property had a rear door through a squint opening to a small enclosed yard, and possibly a latrine under the staircase. From the 15th century onwards, some houses were knocked through and combined to create larger dwellings. Few plans remain unchanged, with various combinations and additions made over the centuries.

External Features

The terrace stands two storeys high, with some attics, and houses are variously arranged in two or four bays, though Numbers 10 and 11 have three bays. Windows are mainly 12-pane sashes, many retaining early 18th-century glazing bars. Number 9 also has an early two-light casement with leaded glazing at first-floor level in an adapted opening, and two 16-pane sashes at ground floor. Number 13 has one- and two-light stone mullion and transom casements with cusping, and plain square casements to the first floor. Doors are four- or six-panelled, some with transom lights. Various remains of flush surrounds to former door and window openings survive, and a moulded stone eaves course is interrupted by the external stacks.

There are 21 chimney stacks in total, each having square lower sections carrying octagonal shafts with open fretted cappings. Each stack features two square stone panels bearing heraldic shields.

Interior Details

Number 1

This was formerly a larger property extending through to St Andrew Street, but now has a continuous party wall separating the two parts. The layout comprises a narrow entrance hall to the right, a single room to the left, a rear wing, and an inserted kitchen at ground floor. The front room retains in its rear wall a deep embrasure and rere-arch to a blocked former casement, a deep niche with cinquefoil head to the spandrel, and a blocked four-centred arch to the former doorway, all with exposed structural stonework. A lateral beam with small chamfer is present. A deep plastered arch leads to the early rear range, and under the staircase is an early plank door to a space with a square stone pier with broad corbelled capital built into the party division.

The straight-flight staircase, with winders to the upper landing, has a late 18th-century chinoiserie balustrade. At first floor, the front room has a 17th-century three-plank door opening from the rear wall to a former stairwell, now floored, with an external slit light.

The roof space is floored but not accessible, and contains two bays of complete framing with two purlins, arch-braced principals, and wind-bracing, though no brattished plate—usual in the roofs to Vicars' Close—is visible. Unusually, all members are unpainted and untreated.

Number 5

This property is divided into two horizontal occupations; only the upper floor was inspected. The central open-well 18th-century staircase has slender turned balusters and a moulded handrail, with the landing return in chinoiserie style. Above the landing in the south wall is a built-in beam on three brackets.

At first floor right, the large room has two early 18th-century twelve-pane sashes containing much early glass, and a 19th-century fireplace in the party wall. In the rear wall is the embrasure, rere-arch, and upper part of the original cusped two-light casement; to its right is a wide segmental arch in rough voussoirs with a deep intrados, leading to a small rear wing with an eight-pane sash and shutters to the gable wall.

The other front room has a four-compartment ceiling with small moulded bead divisions, a six-panel fielded door, and in the rear wall a pair of narrow panelled doors with central H-hinges, though hung as a single door. At second-floor level, the front bedrooms show wind-bracing and two purlins in the front slope, with a brattished plate.

Number 6

This house has two floors and an attic, with an entrance hall to the right, a large early rear wing, and a narrow infill kitchen at ground floor. The main ground-floor room has a chamfered-stopped lateral beam and a 20th-century fireplace; in its rear wall, on the kitchen side, is the former door opening to a skew passage, with a further narrow slit low down to the left.

The rear room has some 18th-century dado panelling, a very large boxed lateral beam carrying two smaller chamfered beams from the rear wall, and a pair of steel casement doors leading to the garden.

The entrance hall has some dado panelling and a straight staircase with winders turned to the landing; the painted balustrade has stick balusters and a slender turned newel.

The large first-floor front room has a four-compartment ceiling with moulded beams and a fine large central carved boss; the 17th-century cupboard doors and two-panel fielded entrance door are painted.

The smaller room over the staircase has a fine unpainted panel-and-muntin screen as a partition, with muntins at approximately 500-millimetre centres.

A large rear room has an unusual late 16th-century or early 17th-century ceiling with a series of seven parallel panels divided by narrow moulded beads, and with a form of wide herringbone strutting; this is partly cut across by a later partition forming a passageway.

A steep wooden upper staircase is enclosed partly by a section of panel-and-muntin screen and by wide planks set horizontally or vertically.

The attics retain the original roof structure with arch-braced principals, purlins, wind-bracing and brattished plates. The trusses have carpenters' numbering marks, and some bracing has been removed in the rear slope to insert a 20th-century window. The rear wing has a heavy braced-collar roof in two bays, with peaked collars swept up to the principals on the upper edge.

Number 9

This combines two former units. A central passage has a main room on each side, that to the right at a lower level, a straight staircase, and a deep 16th-century rear wing to the right.

The ground floor right room has two chamfered beams, a stone fireplace with decorative keystone in the front wall, and in the rear an original two-light transomed window with cusping in an embrasure. The left room has a lateral chamfered and stopped beam; in the rear wall is a two-light transomed window with straight head in a peaked rere-arch, a deep arched niche with cinquefoil head, and a former chamfered stone doorway into a square niche.

The rear kitchen has a 17th-century beam with chamfers and bar stops. At the foot of the staircase is a very heavy cambered or peaked beam, and the straight-flight painted 18th-century staircase has three turned balusters per tread to scrolled treads and a polished handrail. The stair winds to the upper landing.

First floor right is ceiled, with an eared 18th-century fire surround. The left room is open to the original two-bay roof with two arch-braced trusses and wind-bracing; in the front wall is a stone fireplace with basket-arch lintel, and there is a single early light in the rear wall. One bay above the staircase also has wind-bracing.

The rear room at first floor, entered through a stone four-centred doorway, has moulded beams originally in four compartments (now two), a two-light cusped casement, and two early blacksmith's iron casements in the end gable wall with small-scale diagonal leading. This rear wall also has, off-centre, a moulded stone four-centred fireplace with, centred above but unrelated, a 15th- or 16th-century stone moulded mantel-shelf with remains of paintwork.

The landing approach has, in the north wall, a 16th-century stone four-light casement with four-centred heads. The upper stair is entered by a two-plank 17th-century door on straps. At second floor, the wing has a cambered-collar roof with two purlins and a small lancet in the gable wall.

Number 13

This is also a combination of two properties, with part of the upper floor separated as 13A, accessed from the Liberty to the rear. A two-storey range return facing down the Close was added later.

The plan comprises a central passage with a principal room on each side, but with the staircase placed laterally across the rear. There are also further rooms to the left backing onto the Liberty and running across at ground floor under Number 13A. Two gabled wings form a central courtyard.

The ground floor right room has a deep but narrow lateral beam, a wide recess with elliptical head to the rear, shutters to the front windows, and a 20th-century fireplace. The room to the left is panelled throughout with 18th-century fielded panels in two ranges above and below a dado rail, with a fine moulded and dentilled cornice. There is an 18th-century fire surround in the north wall and a central boxed beam. Each ceiling compartment has a quatrefoil plaster motif with stylised leaves and flower-heads.

To the rear left is a 17th-century plank door with an unusually wide central plank. The kitchen to the right has a 17th-century plank door and a large lateral beam. The staircase, with bottom winders, has stick balusters and turned newels.

First floor right has a moulded and painted cornice or beam to four sides with two modelled brackets, and a small 19th-century fireplace in the front wall; the windows are shuttered and panelled. The room to the left has a peaked stone rere-arch. Between these rooms is a small bedroom and a small wooden staircase to the attic.

Rear left has a wall in painted fielded panelling incorporating two large 12-pane sashes to the east; to the north is an 18th-century fireplace with similar panelling above. Above the kitchen wing is a large room with a three-light wooden ovolo-mould casement to the north and a 20th-century window opposite. There is a small iron Art Nouveau fire surround and, high up to the left, a small square decorated 17th-century cupboard door.

The attic above the front range, partly accessible, has three bays of original roofing, though modified with collars removed and some evidence for wind-bracing.

The south-facing room in the upper floor of 13A is late 19th-century with a two-bay arch-braced collar roof; in the east wall is the formerly external stack and a blocked two-light casement. There is a bolection-mould fireplace in the north wall.

Historical Context

This terrace forms the eastern half of a double row of houses (the western range being Numbers 14-27) enclosing a street nearly 140 metres long, which slopes down gently from the north and is narrower at the upper than the lower end.

Research by Rodwell has shown that the chimney stacks are part of the original 14th-century layout, and that the roof structure, much of which remains, was built at one date. The continuous eaves line, interrupted by the stacks, follows the slope of the street, and there is a raised coping to each of the original party walls.

The houses were provided for the Vicars Choral, and many still serve this purpose, although from 1840 until around 1970 the Wells Theological College occupied the properties.

This is an outstanding example of an early planned street in which the overall form of the buildings remains substantially unchanged.