Wells, the city of Somerset, pleasantly situated at the foot of the Mendip Hills, 20 miles SW. of Bath and 20 (30 by rail) S. of Bristol. Here, near St Andrew's Well, from which and other springs the place took its name, King Ina in 704 established a house of secular canons; but the see was first founded in 909 by Edward the Elder. It was translated to Bath during the first half of the 12th c, and still is styled Bath and Wells, though Bath's connection has been purely titular since the Reformation. Among its seventy bishops have been Jocelin (1206-42), the ' second founder' of the cathedral, Fox, Wolsey, Barlow, Laud, and Ken. That cathedral, though one of the smallest yet perhaps the most beautiful of English cathedrals, is mainly Early English in style, and is 371 feet long, by 123 across the transept, while the height of the central tower is 160 feet, of the two western towers 130. Its principal glory is the west front, with its matchless sculptures (600 figures in all, of which 151 are life-size or colossal); but other features are the north porch, the inverted tower arches, the east Jesse window with its splendid old glass, the exquisite lady chapel, and the octagonal chapter-house. Other buildings, all of extreme interest, are the moated episcopal palace, with an undercrypt of about 1220; the deanery (temp. Edward IV.); the archdeaconry, now a theological college; the gateways; and St Cuthbert's church, with a noble west tower. Chartered by King John in 1202, Wells lost one of its members in 1867, and the second in 1868. Pop. (1851) 4736; (1901) 4849. See works by Britton (1821), Cockerell (1851), Parker (1860), Freeman (1870), Reynolds (1881), and Jewers (1892).