Day 12 A Rest Day at Wells

Wells Cathedral West Front, with Transept Bridge to Vicar's Close at Far Left

Today was a rest day, and we had a fairly simple agenda: tour Wells' lovely medieval cathedral precincts. We walked to the cathedral around 9:30 a.m. and took a 10:00 tour with a guide. It was us and two other people. It was good to have a guide who could point out things you might not notice, and tell stories. The cathedral itself was beautiful, particularly the stone carvings on the columns, which were creative and sometimes fanciful, like one of a man with a toothache or a boy pulling a thorn out of his foot. The scissor arches, built at the central crossing to support the tower, were amazing to see up close.

Vicar's Close, A Complete Medieval Street

After a brief walk up Vicar's Close, a complete medieval street which houses the cathedral choristers and other staff, our afternoon visit was to the Bishop's Palace, which felt a bit chaotic with sound checks in the chapel, large tour groups, and children running around--though it was neat to see how "family friendly" they had made the place. The highlights for us were the gardens, the display case that had stories about "coronation blunders" (the bishop of Bath and Wells stands next to the monarch at coronation ceremonies) and an animated feature for children about bishops past and present—we found it fascinating. We want to find out more about Bishop Thomas Ken (and not just because of his name): he sounds revolutionary in his care for the poor and his defiance of politics with which he didn't agree.

Southeast View of Cathedral from Bishop's Palace Garden

We went back to the cathedral for the Evensong service, which was moving and uplifting. It was a visiting choir, and they interpreted the words and music wonderfully. I was teary during the psalm because the music expressed the troubled heart of the psalmist so well. For Ken, his moment was hearing all of the choir's voices come together to sing Gloria on one triumphant note in the Nunc Dimittis. The music was joyous. We're not huge fans of ultra-modern music, and the only part of the service that had it was the organ postlude. The virtuosity of the organist was amazing, but the piece he was playing seemed to modulate from 1980s digital robot sounds to classic horror film organ to Mr. Bean at the amusement park! It certainly wasn't boring.

Croquet on the Courtyard Green, Bishop's Palace

When it ceased we could hear more clearly the heavy rain on the cathedral roof, which had actually started partway through the service. It was so cold and wet as we ducked through the rain to our B & B that we just stayed in for dinner, since we always try to have enough snacks on hand for that type of situation. (We were glad that our B & B is only a short ways east of the cathedral!)

In the Bishop's Palace Garden

In sum: Wells, especially the cathedral, was lovely, and we were very glad that we had made the decision to add it to our itinerary even though to get there we had to detour a bit to the north of our general line across the country. [We'd love to come back some time to visit over a couple of days, and perhaps see some of the caves and gorges in the Mendip Hills immediately to the north.—Ken]

8,988 steps, 6.741 km, 213.2 cal