arm
colouring of some of the stones.[3]

In the topmost stage there is another range of arcades and columns.

=The West Front.=--The chief feature in this front is the noble
recessed arch, 65 feet high and 34 feet wide. There are seven columns
on each side of the arch, one being partially concealed by the
masonry of the Debased Perpendicular window which was inserted
originally to give light to the nave. Portions of the seventh shaft
have been, however, exposed for inspection.

There is one slight defect in this unique west front as it now is,
viz., that apart from the window, the arch is on too large a scale for
the size of the front, or, as Dean Spence puts it (he himself is
quoting from some other writer), "As this noble arch stands at
present, it is extremely beautiful in itself, but it has an incomplete
appearance, seeming to want a _raison d'etre_, and being too large a
jewel for its setting."[4] Exactly the same may be said of the window,
though its excessive size will not be felt so much from the outside as
from the inside of the church, where the low vaulting of the nave
further accentuates the excessive size of the window.

As was the case at Gloucester, larger western towers were originally
contemplated to contain the bells, and there are indications of this
in the rough stonework in the clerestory on the south side, evidently
designed to carry a tower 22 feet square. The towers in the west front
at Southwell are an example of this design carried out. When it was
decided to build smaller towers, the bell tower or campanile (which is
shown on p. 17) was built. Later again the lantern or open part of the
interior of the tower was vaulted over (_vide_ p. 74), and the bells
were hung in the great central tower. The campanile was then diverted
to other uses. In later times it was used as a prison for several
years, but having become structurally unsafe, was demolished in 1817.

It would be interesting to know the original scheme of windows in this
west front. There is a trace of the original Norman doorway inside the
present doorway, and it is supposed that the original window was
either a large round window, with possibly one or two tiers of
round-headed lights below. Later, a larger window, probably of
fourteenth century work, was inserted, which lasted till it was blown
into the church in 1661. The present window, which was built in 1686,
may probably have been an attempt to follow the lines of the previou