The Vicars' Chapel

The Vicars' Chapel, Wells

A private chapel, now used as a schoolroom, built circa 1424–1430 for Bishop Bubwith or Bishop Stafford. The bellcote dates to approximately 1450, and some 13th-century carved detail has been incorporated into the south front. The building is constructed of local stone rubble with a Chilcote stone ashlar facade and dressings. It has a Welsh slate roof behind a crenellated parapet set between coped gables, and an ashlar chimney stack.

The chapel occupies the ground floor and features a west screens passage leading to a spiral stair in the north-west corner. An upper room, originally a library, rises above. The chapel was built against the pre-existing Liberty wall on the north side.

The exterior is two storeys tall, arranged in two double bays. It has a plinth, sill string, cornice mould, battlemented parapets, and buttresses with two offsets to the ends and between bays. These buttresses terminate in pinnacles incorporating canopied niches for statues. The ground floor contains a pair of two-light pointed-arched Perpendicular-traceried windows with arched labels featuring headstops and deeply and under-carved spandrels. The entrance doorway sits in the left unit of the first bay, set under window tracery and not quite centrally placed. It is four-centred arched with a moulded surround bearing tablet flower decoration. The door is mostly original, with moulded cover strips and a traceried top bearing shields with the arms of Hungerford, the See, Stafford, and Bubwith. The first floor has paired cinquefoil-cusped, flat-headed two-light windows with linked square labels and drops. The parapet displays uncarved shields in the merlons, and beneath these are four roughly triangular carved panels of 13th-century work, possibly from the old cloisters.

The west gable is plain, with an abutment from the adjoining building. The east gable has two three-light windows: the lower window is flat-headed with cinquefoil-cusped lights under a square label with headstops, while the upper window may be partly 19th-century with Perpendicular tracery and a semicircular arched head under a label with floriated curl stops. All windows on the east and south sides have external ferramenta.

On the north side, fronting The Liberty, is a chimney stack projecting slightly from first-floor level on a moulded corbel. It terminates with moulded offsets, an octagonal tall stack, and a stone fret top.

Interior

The lower floor chapel features a narrow cross-passage to the corner staircase, with a fine 15th-century screen to the right. This screen returns along the north side in a late 19th or early 20th-century extension against the wall, incorporating nine figures of saints on a gold background. At the east end are two lofty niches with cusped aedicules, without figures, flanking the altar on short lengths of panelled plinth. The ceiling comprises heavy moulded timber beams in four compartments, each with sub-compartments and various carved bosses and embellishments.

The upper floor contains five trusses, the central one on moulded brackets. The roof is formed of four bays with arch-braced principals, three purlins, and brattished plates, with wind-bracing in three ranges. The entrance from the stair is through a high doorway with a four-centred head. A 19th-century fire surround is present.

Historical Note

The dating of the Chapel remains under discussion. Pevsner's date of circa 1470–5 is evidently too late; current understanding is summarised by Rodwell. The building apparently did not originally have a west entrance, although the adjoining No. 14 was the house of the "Senior priest vicar" according to a 1790 reference. Despite the somewhat uncomfortable design of the doorway, the front facing down Vicars' Close forms an appropriate termination to the upper end of the street.