THE BISHOP'S CHAPEL AND THE BISHOP'S PALACE

THE BISHOP'S CHAPEL AND THE BISHOP'S PALACE, BISHOP'S PALACE

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: I
List Entry Number:: 1382874
Date first listed:: 12-Nov-1953
List Entry Name:: THE BISHOP'S CHAPEL AND THE BISHOP'S PALACE
Statutory Address:: THE BISHOP'S CHAPEL AND THE BISHOP'S PALACE, BISHOP'S PALACE

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Date:: 2007-08-01
Reference:: IOE01/16712/04
Rights:: © Mr John H. Sparkes. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: I
List Entry Number:: 1382874
Date first listed:: 12-Nov-1953
Date of most recent amendment:: 31-May-2000
List Entry Name:: THE BISHOP'S CHAPEL AND THE BISHOP'S PALACE
Statutory Address 1:: THE BISHOP'S CHAPEL AND THE BISHOP'S PALACE, BISHOP'S PALACE

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: THE BISHOP'S CHAPEL AND THE BISHOP'S PALACE, BISHOP'S PALACE

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Somerset (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Wells
National Grid Reference:: ST 55208 45734

Details

WELLS

ST5445 BISHOP'S PALACE 662-1/7/5 The Bishop's Chapel, The Bishop's 12/11/53 Palace (Formerly Listed as: BISHOP'S PALACE The Bishop's Palace (including...Chapel...))

GV I

Private chapel in Bishop's Palace. 1275-92 built for Bishop Burnell. Local stone rubble roughly coursed, Doulting stone dressings, shallow pitched roof behind parapet. EXTERIOR: single storey, 3 bays, set at right angles to, and on the south west corner of, the Bishop's Palace (qv). Plinth, offsets under main windows, parapet string and crenellated parapet, corner turrets, those on north side square, but the south-west corner octagonal on plan. Wide west elevation has semicircular arched doorway with trefoil inner arch, with Purbeck stone colonettes over a pair of C19 plank doors with decorative iron straps. Above is a segmental pointed-arched window with arched label and 5 cusped lights, in the gable a sexfoil vent. Stair light in corner turrets, arched doorway in south-west corner. Arched openings in parapet. East elevation has a large pointed segmental-headed window with six lights in groups of 3 with interlaced tracery, and a central octofoil, all under a moulded drip with stops. Each side has 3 windows with geometric Decorated tracery. INTERIOR: a single undivided space with lierne vault, having naturalistic foliage to bosses, on triple shafts to C19 carved corbel heads, and with paired shafts to window reveals. Stone floor. The rere-arch to the W door is cusped. Reredos in 5 bays with blank 2-light openings with quatrefoils, below the main sill. Sedilia and piscina, restored by Buckler, 1834, with Purbeck shafts and cusped arches. Windows with mainly C19 grisaille, but some medieval glass fragments to tracery lights. Fittings are C20: the W returns to the stalls have a coved cresting carried on slender paired colonnettes. This chapel is an important element in the development of the Decorated Style in the late C13. (Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 314; Colchester LS: Wells Cathedral: A History: Shepton Mallet: 1982-: 227-244; Bony J: The English Decorated Style: London: 1979-: PASSIM).

Listing NGR: ST5520745735

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 483260
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Bony, J, The English Decorated Style, (1979)
Colchester, LS , Wells Cathedral: A History, (1982), 227-244
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: North Somerset and Bristol, (1958), 314

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.