Its width is tapered by 3 metres (9.8 ft) to make it look longer when viewed from the main entrance nearest the cathedral.

By the nineteenth century, the buildings were reported to be in a poor state of repair, and part of the hall was being used as a malt house.

The interior is decorated with 19th-century gesso work by Heywood Sumner and the building now used by Wells Cathedral School.

The Close owes its origins to a grant of land and buildings by Walter de Hulle, a canon of Wells Cathedral, for the purpose of accommodating chantry priests;[9] however, the land is likely to have been used for a long period before the construction of the close, as prehistoric flint flakes and Romano-British pottery shards were recovered from the garden of number four during work to construct an extension.

[11] Bishop Jocelin of Wells styled the priests serving the cathedral as the Vicars Choral, in the 12th century, their duty being to chant divine service eight times a day.

[16] The four-centered rere-arches may have been by William Joy or Thomas Witney his predecessor as master mason of the cathedral.

[17] The first parts of the Close to be constructed were this first floor barrel-roofed common hall above a store room, kitchen and bakehouse which were completed in 1348.

[17] Next to The Chequer is the Muniment Room which has a filing cabinet dating from around 1420 used to hold documents such as leases of land.

The Liberty encompassed 52 acres (21 ha)[22] broadly situated to the east of the city centre of Wells.

[17] Most of the Vicars' Chapel is rubble masonry; however, the south face which can be seen from the close is of white Conglomerate quarried locally.

They line each side of an elongated quadrangle which appears longer than it is because of false perspective achieved by building the houses at the upper northern end nearest the chapel 2.7 metres (8 ft 10 in) closer together than those at the lower southern end closest to the Vicars' Hall.

By 1468 lead pipes had been installed to bring water into the houses, although the wells continued to function until the 19th century.

[29] In the fifteenth century, Bishop Thomas Beckington left much of his estate to the Vicars' Choral, enabling repairs to be carried out.

[4][5][16][24][26][30][31][32] He unified the appearance of the terraces, including the installation of a single arch-braced and wind-braced trussed sloping roof around 1466.