have been
rebuilt in the fifteenth century also, and the pillars lengthened
considerably. The arches, with their dripstones, preserved and used
again on the taller pillars, and most of the capitals have had the
foliage cut off. The aisle walls, the clerestory, and roof, are all
Late Perpendicular, about the time of Henry VII.; but the beautiful
west tower is evidently earlier than the clerestory and roof, and has
the mark of the old roof on the east side of it, coming below the
present clerestory. This fine tower, which is certainly one of the
finest of its class, and which Mr Freeman considers, I believe, to
rank only second to one other [Wrington], is said to have been built
in the time of Bishop Bubwith, or about 1430; and this appears to me
probable. The character of the work is rather Early Perpendicular, and
the groined vault under the belfry appears to be an imitation of the
Decorated vault of the cathedral."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The road should be followed for about a quarter of a mile out
of the town; at this point a path leads over a stile and through
a coppice to the best point of view.

[2] Vol. i. 421.

[3] _History of the Cathedral_, 125.

[4] The Doulting stone, of which the cathedral is built, comes
from the St. Andrew's quarry at the little village of
Doulting, where Bishop Ealdhelm died. It is inferior oolite,
and very like Bath stone, which is the greater oolite. The
exterior shafts were blue lias, and those within either blue
lias or Purbeck marble, though there are one or two shafts of
red Draycot stone in the western responds of the nave.

[5] _Cathedrals_, iv. 98.

CHAPTER III

THE INTERIOR

The earlier architecture of Wells Cathedral presents so many puzzles,
that the most skilled experts have differed widely both from each
other, and, as we know now, from the truth. There are four distinct
varieties of Early English work, covering a period of about a century
from the time of Bishop Reginald, whose episcopate began in 1174; and
yet, until Mr Bennett deciphered the old charters, which have at
length settled the problem, all the work was attributed to Jocelin,
for nothing was known of Reginald's building, and some of the best
judges were even convinced that the west front was built before the
nave. The difficulty was mainly caused by the unusual character of the
architecture of the nave; "unlike that of any or