Boundary Walls To Numbers 14-27

WELLS

ST5445 VICARS' CLOSE 662-1/7/335 (West side) 12/11/53 Boundary walls to Nos 14-27 (Consecutive) (Formerly Listed as: VICAR'S CLOSE Nos.1-13 AND 14-27 (Consecutive))

GV I

Walls enclosing gardens of row of houses. Mid C15, with some C19 modifications, restored 1976-83. Local roughly squared stone rubble with Doulting ashlar dressings. Front boundary walls on average 4m from front of houses, with returns along side boundaries, and with openings opposite doorways to houses, average 1m high, with roll-top and pitched face copings. At the north end is a return link eastward to the Vicars Chapel (qv). Variations are; No.15 has ashlar piers with moulded pyramidal caps to gateway, No.16 has low ashlar walls surmounted by wrought-iron railings having simple collared points and urn finials to cast bracketed standards, with pair of gates to match and piers at each end, No.17 has plain stone coping, No.22 has a higher boundary wall and what may be an original gateway with 4-centred gate arch having mock crenellated top, and a timber boarded gate, and No.27 has a sweep up to a similar stone gateway abutting part of the Vicars Hall (qv). These walls break up the original quadrangular form of Vicars' Close, having been erected in response to demands from the Vicars for gardens. They enclose the approx 140m long street, which narrows and rises slightly towards the N end, and is completely paved with setts. Probably each house had a raised gateway when the walls were first constructed. (Colchester L S: Wells Cathedral: a History: Shepton Mallet: 1982-: 212 - 225; Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 319).

Listing NGR: ST5513245992