Wells and Mendip Museum

The Wells and Mendip Museum stands beside Wells Cathedral in a stone building that began as a 15th-century house. Most of the present structure dates from the 17th and 18th centuries, with Welsh slate roofs and a Gothic Revival salon inside. A marble fireplace and a small entrance hall lead upstairs, while the front was remodelled in 1828. The rear of the building includes a 20th-century extension, and the whole place is Grade II listed. Herbert E. Balch founded the museum in 1893 to display his collection of local finds. The Wells Natural History and Archaeological Society now runs it after moving from the cathedral cloister in 1932. The Balch Room shows geology and fossils from the Mendip Hills, including Stone Age and Iron Age pieces. Roman lead ingots, cathedral statuary and 18th-century samplers fill other cases. Speleological exhibits include a skeleton thought to be the Witch of Wookey Hole and bones found in a cave beneath the Hunters Lodge Inn car park in 2004. Visitors climb the staircase hall to reach the salon with its marble fireplace. The Balch Room displays fossils and tools from the Mendip Hills, alongside Roman ingots and embroidered samplers. Speleology displays include cave bones and the Witch of Wookey Hole skeleton. The building’s mix of centuries shows in its slate roofs, Gothic Revival salon and 20th-century extension.