Wells Cathedral, Wells - Framed Picture 16" x 16"

The Cathedral Church of Saint Andrew, commonly known as Wells Cathedral, is an Anglican cathedral in the city of Wells, Somerset.

The cathedral, dedicated to St Andrew the Apostle, is the seat of the Bishop of Bath and Wells. It is the mother church of the diocese and contains the bishop's throne. It was built between 1175 and 1490, replacing an earlier church built on the same site in 705.

It is moderately sized among the medieval cathedrals of England, between those of massive proportion such as Lincoln and York and the smaller cathedrals in Oxford and Carlisle.

The architecture is entirely Gothic and mostly in the Early English style of the late 12th and early 13th centuries. It differs from most other English medieval cathedrals, which have parts in the earlier Romanesque style. Work began about 1175 at the east end with the building of the choir.

The earliest remains of a building on the site are of a late-Roman mausoleum, identified during excavations in 1980. An abbey church was built in Wells in 705 by Aldhelm, first bishop of the newly established Diocese of Sherborne during the reign of King Ine of Wessex. It was dedicated to Saint Andrew and stood at the site of the cathedral's cloisters, where some excavated remains can be seen. In 766 Cynewulf, King of Wessex, signed a charter endowing the church with eleven hides of land.

The first Bishop of Wells was Athelm, who crowned King Æthelstan. Athelm and his nephew Dunstan both became Archbishops of Canterbury. During this period a choir of boys was established to sing the liturgy. Wells Cathedral School, which was established to educate these choirboys, dates its foundation to this point.

The cathedral is thought to have been conceived and commenced in about 1175 by Reginald Fitz Jocelin, who died in 1191. Although it is clear from its size that from the outset, the church was planned to be the cathedral of the diocese, the seat of the bishop moved between Wells and the abbeys of Glastonbury and Bath, before settling at Wells.

In 1197 Reginald's successor, Savaric FitzGeldewin, with the approval of Pope Celestine III, officially moved his seat to Glastonbury Abbey. The title of Bishop of Bath and Glastonbury was used until the Glastonbury claim was abandoned in 1219.