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470
MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
to be adorned. Good examples of this are to be found in the
early fourteenth century in the alterations to the east end of
Wells, notably in the capitals of the ambulatory piers. Some
ofthese changes are already to be observed in the earlier parts of
Exeter, notably the areas ofthe window'
contrasting patterned
heads and the plain
ashlar which surrounds them and in the
way the Purbeck marble is used in the the attached shafts
piers,
of which are all much less boldly projecting
than the earlier
Purbeck shafts of Lincoln and its early thirteentlvcentury con'
temporaries. As in the case of Westminster it seems clear that
the material is being used not for the contrast of its colour,
which would reinforce the linear
pattern,
but for the quality of
its surface texture.
Another development of the late thirteenth and early four-"
teenth centuries which seems to be connected with this change
oftaste appears in the planning and general distribution ofthe
buildings. At Wells in the last years ofthe thirteenth century a
reconstruction ofthe whole east end ofthe church was under/
taken; this was finally completed about 1335 (Kg. IO 4)* The
original form ofthe east end ofWells was, as mentioned above,
that its aisle returned square round the east end of the presby
tery. The new building included a lengthening of thepres'
bytery, the addition of transeptal chapels projecting north and
south from the ends ofthe choir aisles, and the building ofa lady
chapel projecting from the new ambulatory to the east. The
lady chapel, the first part ofthe new work to be undertaken, is
in the form ofan elongated octagon, the east end ofwhich in/
terpenetrates with the ambulatory as it returns across the end of
the new presbytery. The lady chapel is of considerably greater
internal height than the adjacent parts
ofthe ambulatory and in
consequence this interpenetration produces a relation of in/
ternal spaces of extraordinary complexity, and it is managed
most It is
ingeniously.
clear that the new building is intended to
provide a great variety of vistas from different viewpoints and
represents a breakaway from the logical geometrical planning
of the earlier Gothic buildings. Also in the earlier fourteenth
century a new porch was added to the church of St. Mary