The Bishop’s Palace and Gardens: Medieval Episcopal Residence at Wells
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- British, English
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Palace
On this page21 sections
History
The Bishop’s Palace and Gardens in Wells, United Kingdom, is a medieval episcopal residence beside Wells Cathedral, built under the bishops of Bath and Wells from the early thirteenth century. Construction began around 1210 under Bishop Jocelin of Wells, with the principal work dating from about 1230. The palace formed part of the Liberty of St Andrew, an ecclesiastical jurisdiction containing the cathedral, the palace, Vicar’s Close, and the residences and offices of cathedral clergy.
Foundation and medieval development
Jocelin continued the cathedral-building campaign begun by his predecessor, Bishop Reginald Fitz Jocelin. His work at Wells extended beyond the cathedral and palace to institutions within the liberty, including a school for choristers, a grammar school, a hospital or travellers’ hostel, and a chapel. In 1207, King John granted Jocelin the right to establish a medieval deer park. The palace grounds also contained orchards, a herb garden, and kitchen gardens. The area known as the Palace Camery was planted with food-producing grounds that supplied the bishop and his staff.
Bishop Robert Burnell commissioned the palace chapel and great hall between 1275 and 1292. The complex therefore grew from an episcopal residence into a group of buildings and grounds that supported religious, domestic, administrative, and ceremonial activity within the cathedral precinct.
Fortification and water management
During the fourteenth century, Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury enclosed the palace with defensive walls, a moat, and a drawbridge. His relationship with the citizens of Wells was uneasy, partly because of his taxation, and the fortifications gave the episcopal residence a strongly defended boundary.
The moat was formed by diverting streams that had previously run between the cathedral and palace, creating marshy ground around the site. It functioned as a reservoir controlled by sluice gates, and its water powered mills in Wells. This defensive feature was therefore also part of the water-management system that served the wider city.
Later medieval and Tudor changes
Bishop Thomas Beckington added the Bishop’s House in the fifteenth century. He was also associated with the Bishop’s Eye, a gateway from the adjoining market place into the palace precinct, and with the Well House, which provided water to the citizens of Wells. These works added new architectural and civic elements to the medieval complex.
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, the sixteenth-century suppression and confiscation of England’s monasteries under the Tudor crown, brought a major interruption to the palace’s ecclesiastical history. In 1548, Bishop Barlow sold the palace and grounds to Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset. The property returned to the bishopric after Seymour’s execution in 1552. During the 1550s, Barlow also sold the lead from the roof of the Great Hall, contributing to the later loss of that building.
Conflict, disaster, and transformation
The palace served as a military garrison during the English Civil War and the Monmouth Rebellion, an unsuccessful 1685 uprising against James II. After the Battle of Sedgemoor, captured rebels were held at the palace, while royalist troops were quartered in the Bishop’s Barn during the Bloody Assizes, the post-rebellion trials in which Monmouth’s supporters were punished.
In the Great Storm of 1703, two chimney stacks collapsed onto the bedchamber of Bishop Kidder and his wife, killing them. The palace was altered again in the eighteenth century, and Bishop Beadon modified the Bishop’s House in 1810. A central porch was added to the palace around 1824.
During the 1820s, Bishop George Henry Law reshaped parts of the grounds as pleasure gardens. He removed much of the Great Hall, including its south and east walls, and arranged the remaining fabric as a picturesque ruin. He also built a raised rampart inside the perimeter wall and created a grotto for displaying fossils from Banwell Caves. The Great Hall was largely demolished around 1830, although its surviving remains became part of Law’s landscape design. A pool beside the springs was created in the 1830s.
Restoration and continuing use
Benjamin Ferrey restored, subdivided, and extended the Bishop’s House between 1846 and 1854. He also restored the palace and chapel during the 1840s and 1850s, using stained glass from ruined French churches in the chapel. Later changes to the grounds included an arboretum planted in the outer garden in 1977 by Bishop John Bickersteth to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
The palace was designated a Grade I listed building in 1953, while the gardens were placed at Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England. The Church Commissioners own the complex, and The Palace Trust manages it. The main palace remains available for public and institutional functions, while the Bishop’s House contains a residence and offices. Parts of the palace remain available as a residence for the bishop, and a 2014 dispute about relocating the bishop ended with the decision that it should remain the see house, the official residence associated with a bishop’s see.
The palace also preserves an association with the final years of Glastonbury Abbey. One of the two surviving Glastonbury chairs is displayed there. Made in Britain from a description brought from Rome in 1504 by Abbot Richard Beere, it was produced for or by John Arthur Thorne, a monk who served as treasurer of Glastonbury Abbey. Thorne was executed with his master, Richard Whiting, the abbey’s last abbot, during the Dissolution. Whiting sat on a chair of this type during his trial at the Bishop’s Palace. The palace’s mute swans were trained in the 1870s to pull bells when begging for food, and two swans given to the bishop by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006 retained the behavior.
Remains
The surviving complex combines the main palace, Bishop’s House, chapel, Great Hall remains, fortified precinct, gatehouse, moat, Well House, Bishop’s Barn, and approximately 14 acres, or 5.7 hectares, of gardens. Medieval stone buildings stand within a water-filled enclosure, while later landscaping incorporates ruined medieval fabric, lawns, planted areas, and the springs that feed the site’s waterworks.
Principal buildings
Main palace
The main palace is a two-storey, seven-bay building with three gables set over alternating bays. Two of the gables are supported by buttresses. An attic lies beneath the coped gables, which are topped by octagonal chimney stacks. Inside are a hall, a solar, a medieval private or family room, a gallery, and a vaulted undercroft, meaning a vaulted room beneath a larger building. Flagstone floors and a sixteenth-century stone fireplace survive among the interior features.
Chapel
Beside the main palace stands the late thirteenth-century chapel, an aisless building in the Early Decorated Gothic style. This phase of English Gothic architecture is associated with elaborate window tracery and ornamental stonework. The chapel is built of local stone with Doulting Stone dressings, and its windows contain stone tracery. Oak leaves and Green Man figures, a foliage-associated medieval decorative motif, appear on the ceiling bosses. The chapel’s stained glass includes material taken from ruined French churches during Benjamin Ferrey’s nineteenth-century restoration.
Bishop’s House
The Bishop’s House consists of two narrow ranges arranged around a narrow courtyard. Its south front has a crenellated parapet, a battlemented upper edge. Repeated alterations have changed the interior arrangement, but fifteenth-century features include a doorway and oak screens. Some windows retain fragments of sixteenth-century stained glass.
Fortified precinct and gateways
Gatehouse
The fourteenth-century gatehouse dates from 1341 and carries a bridge over the moat. Its entrance was protected by a heavy gate, a portcullis, which is a vertically sliding defensive gate, and a drawbridge operated by machinery above the entrance. Spouts allowed defenders to pour heated liquids onto attackers. The drawbridge remained operational in 1831.
Bishop’s Eye
The Bishop’s Eye is a three-storey gateway through which the palace precinct is reached from the adjoining market place. Built around 1450 for Bishop Beckington, it is made of Doulting ashlar, finely cut and regularly shaped dressed stone, and has a copper roof. It forms a pair with the contemporary Penniless Porch, the gateway from the market place into Wells Cathedral.
Walls and moat
Crenellated walls approximately 5 metres, or 16 feet, high enclose the fortified precinct. The moat surrounds these walls and is fed by water from St Andrew’s Spring. It holds approximately 4 million imperial gallons, or 18 million litres. Its sluice-controlled water once formed part of the system that powered watermills in Wells.
Waterworks and agricultural building
Spring and Well House
St Andrew’s Spring supplies St Andrew’s Well at a rate of approximately 40 imperial gallons, or 180 litres, per second. The water originates in the cave system of the Mendip Hills, including Thrupe Lane Swallet. Built in 1451 for Bishop Beckington, the Well House provided water to the citizens of Wells in the market place. It is a small stone building with a slate roof and a central opening in the stone floor leading to the well.
Bishop’s Barn
The Bishop’s Barn is a fifteenth-century tithe barn, a large agricultural building used to store goods paid to a church or religious institution. It is built of roughly squared local stone with Doulting ashlar dressings and has a Westmorland slate roof. The area beside it is now a public park and play area.
Great Hall and gardens
Great Hall remains
The Great Hall was a five-bayed aisled hall in the Decorated Gothic style, with a central space flanked by side aisles. It had crenellations and tall windows. Its surviving fabric consists principally of the north wall and some column bases from an internal arcade. The roofless remains lie within the south lawn, where they form part of the garden arrangement created after the hall’s nineteenth-century demolition.
Gardens and planted landscape
The gardens include St Andrew’s Spring, the moat, an arboretum, the south lawn, the raised rampart along the inside of the wall, and the grotto created by Bishop Law. The grotto was used to display fossils from Banwell Caves. Notable trees and shrubs include black walnut, Lebanon cedar, catalpa, and ginkgo. A tree of heaven planted on the south lawn in 1885 was blown down during the St Jude storm in 2013.
The pool beside the springs was created in the 1830s and forms part of the south-lawn landscape. On still days, its surface reflects the east end of Wells Cathedral. The palace also displays one of the two surviving Glastonbury chairs, together with other chairs of the same period and later reproductions.
