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ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE 459
an interesting development from the experimental character of
the vaults farther to the east. There is a longitudinal ridge rib to
which five ribs spring from each side, and a short transverse
ridge rib which stops at a point where it is met by two addi/
tional ribs. The effect ofthe transverse ridge ribs and the large
boss at the central point ofeach bay is to place the main interest
of the pattern in the middle ofthe bay rather than at the trans/
verse rib dividing one bay from another. This tends to em/
phasize the continuity of the pattern of ribs in the length, as
against the sexpartite system used in the transepts, where the
division into bays is very clearly marked. Moreover, the multi/
plication of ribs, as compared with a continental church of
the same age, extraordinarily reinforces the impression that the
main preoccupation of the designers of these vaults was the
continuity oflinear surface pattern.
Almost exactly contemporary with Lincoln, the canons of
Wells began the reconstruction oftheir church. The scale ofthe
building was much less ambitious than Lincoln and the eastern
limb, the
transepts, and a considerable
part ofthe nave seem to
have been completed by about 1215 or
shortly after (PL 80 6).
As originally built, Wells had a square east end with the aisle
returned round the east end ofthe main vessel to form an am/
off it to the east. That this was
bulatory with chapels opening
the original plan ofthe late
twelfth/century church is
fairly well
established, though the whole ofthe eastern part ofthe church
was profoundly modified in the
early fourteenth
century. During
the 1220*5 and 1230*5 the nave of the church was continued
westward and the whole work was completed by the celebrated
west front,with its towers, which flanked the aisles ofthe nave to
the north and south. The earlier Wells work is entirely different
in character from the Canterbury/derived style ofLincoln. It is
carried out consistently in one/coloured freestone and is dis/
tinguished for the high quality of its sculptural decoration,
notably in the foliage capitals which in the transepts contain a
large number of small genre figure subjects and grotesques.
The plan ofthe piers, with their groups of triple attached shafts,
and especially the treatment of the triforium openings, is very