Tourist attractions Wells

Wells was the first cathedral built in the Early English Gothic style and was about three centuries in the making, from 1175 to 1508. Its spectacular façade stands twice as high as its width, almost 46m across. It boasts one of the richest displa..

The tower of St John the Baptist's Church (15 C), which is 41 m high, is one of the finest in Somerset with its cross of openwork pinnacles (St Katherine's Chapel inside is a remainder of the 12C building).

The abbey is most probably Saxon in origin and is thought to date back to the 7C. It was rebuilt, extended and burned down, then restored in the 12C. The abbey had seigneurial rights and vast estates when it fell victim to Dissolution in 1539. After ..

The caves are near the gorge bottom on the south side. Cox's Cave was discovered in 1837 and Gough's Cave in 1890. The series of chambers follow the course of underground streams through the porous limestone. The stalagmites, stalactites, petrifi..

The gorge is 3 km long with a 1:6 gradient in its descent from the Mendips. The cliffs are of limestone, gaunt and grey where the fissured walls and pinnacles rise vertically to 107-122 m. From near the foot of the gorge, Jacob's Ladder a staircase..

This solidly fortified moated palace dates back some 700 years. Inside its walls are gardens, a croquet lawn, a restaurant and a natural spring (from which the town derives its name) producing 15 million litres of water per day (180 litres per second..

Overshadowed by its prestigious neighbour, this magnificent Perpendicular Gothic parish church stands at the other end of the city. The elegant, 37 m tower has buttresses which support the bell tower. The inside features a typical Somerset 16C coffe..

The museum illustrates the daily life of a 19C Somerset farm: the masterpiece is the 14C barn from the abbey, with its fine masonry and splendid roof.

At 159 m high, this hillock is a landmark for miles around. The tower at the top is the unique survivor of St Michael's Church , built in the 14C. The view looks across the Quantocks, the Bristol Canal and the Mendips.

One of the main roads, Magdalene Street , is lined with pretty 17-19C houses; the other, High Street , is dominated by the George and Pilgrims Hotel (15C) and the abbey tribunal (14C), that was once part of the abbey. At the junction of the two s..

In the caves' Heritage Centre, the weapons, utensils made of flint, bone, antler horn and bronze, pottery and the skull of Cheddar Man indicate that the caves were inhabited intermittently from the Paleolithic to the Iron Age (20000 to 500 BC) and in..