Wells

L

Yesterday we went to Wells. My cousins have been enormously generous in driving me to places of interest. We set off around 10.00 am to visit the Cathedral, the Bishop's Palace and a small miniatures exhibition on at the Town Hall. We arrived in Wells in time for the 11.30 am service of choral Matins. The choir, a mixture of adults, children, boys and girls, was superbe - easily the best I have encountered so far.. The acoustics are fine. I have a sense of the Church Universal, continuously worshiping and participating in community.

The exterior of the church now has a patina that creates a two-colour effect which adds dimension, the gold of the stone accentuated by to grayling of the outer edges of the figures.

Inside, there is light and space. The deceptive simplicity if the shapes gives it great beauty.

A couple of pieces of splendid needle lace were displayed on a wall. These were worked in 1961 by Sir Stuart Town and his wife Mary Christine, nee Tucker and depict a story of an attempted poisoning of St John by a priestess of Diana. Sir Stuart Town, when not a civil servant in India,  was a bobbin lace maker and designed the piece. His wife taught herself needle lace and worked this piece.

There are also few finely carved leaning chairs.

We paused to watch the clock strike the half hour. High on the wall a soldier kicks his heals, triggering the clock mechanism and setting the rotating figures in motion as it has done for 800 years on the quarter hour. It is the second oldest clock in the world. My Uncle Phil, father to my cousins, loved this clock and could spend hours sitting and watching it.

We eventually found a pub in which to have lunch.

I took no photos et the miniatures exhibition, after which we visited the Bishops Palace, entered through a portico next to the Cathedral.

The gardens are lovely - verdant and peaceful  

They offer tantalising glimpses of the Cathedral

and lovely corners and nooks.

There are formal gardens

and interesting touches everywhere.

The Palace is walled

and you can walk the outside of the wall.

I did not explore much of the inside of the Palace - tiredness had set in. I did, however, visit the under croft 

which houses a couple of interesting tapestries.

We had not seen the famous swans, but they made an appearance as we were leaving - quite a family of them.

I was very tired at the end of the day - so much beauty to take in. Many thanks to Mark who did the driving today and to the effort my cousins put in to showing me around.