The =Chapter-House= is famous among these beautiful adjuncts to English cathedrals. It has been called “a glorious development of window and vault.” It was built in the latter half of the Geometrical period (1280-1315). Note the profusion of ball-flower ornament round the windows and the ogee dripstones outside. “Of octagonal plan, its vaulting ribs branch out from sixteen Purbeck shafts which cluster round the central pillar, typifying the diocesan church with all its members gathered round its common father, the bishop. Each of the eight sides of the room is occupied by a window of four lights, with graceful tracery of an advanced geometrical type. These windows, which are among the finest examples of the period, have no shafts, but their arch mouldings are enriched with a continuous series of the ball-flower ornament. Most of the old glass in which ruby and white are the predominant colours, remains in the upper lights. Under the windows runs an arcade which forms fifty-one stalls, separated into groups of seven by the blue lias vaulting-shafts at the angles, but in the side which is occupied by the doorway there are only two stalls, one on either side of the entrance. Two rows of stone benches are under the stalls, and there is a bench of Purbeck round the base of the central pier.”--(P. D.) Another authority says: “At the springs of the arches are sculptured heads full of expression, kings, bishops, monks, ladies, jesters; and at the angles, grotesques of various kinds. A line of the ball-flower ornament is carried round above the canopies. “The double arches at the entrance show traces of a door on the exterior. Remark the curious boss in the vaulting, composed of four bearded faces. The diameter of the chapter-house is fifty feet, its height forty-one feet. Its unusual, and indeed unique, features are--its separation from the cloisters from which the chapter-house generally opens; and its crypt, or lower story, which rendered necessary the staircase by which it is approached. “A most striking view of the chapter-house is obtained from the fourth angle of the staircase, close to the doorway of the Vicars’ College. The effect of the double-door arches with their tracery, of the central pier, the branched ribs of the vaulting, and the fine windows is magnificent; and when the latter were filled with stained glass, must have been quite unrivalled. The chapter-house is by no means the least important of the many architectural masterpieces which combine to place Wells so high in the ranks of English cathedrals.”--(R. J. K.)