The west front is said to have been the work of Abbot Ripley, who was appointed to the abbacy in 1485. It is now in an unfinished state, and it would seem that there was an intention to form two western towers. The foundation of them was laid with much ceremony by Abbot Birchenshaw, in 1508, the Mayor being then present: but the project was most likely abandoned for want of funds. “Had the original design been executed,” says Winkle, “it would not have been very imposing. The effect of it, as it now appears, is much injured by a building which is connected with it, and shuts out one of the turrets which flank on either side the west wall of the nave. The original intention seems to have been the usual one, viz., a square tower on each side of the west end of the nave. The foundations of that on the north side still exist, the site of that on the south is now occupied by a building called the consistory court, once perhaps a chapel, in the west wall of which is a pointed window of four lights, with perpendicular tracery, and flowing crocketted canopy with rich finial; above the window is a belt of pannelled tracery, and on each side of it is a niche with overhanging canopies, adorned with pendants and pinnacles, and resting on good brackets. The statues are gone. The parapet of this building is quite plain. The west entrance is a singular and beautiful composition. The door itself is a Tudor arch, inclosed within a square head, the spandrils are filled with rich and elegant foliations, the hollow moulding along the top is deep and broad, and filled with a row of angels half-lengths; all this is deeply recessed within another Tudor arch, under another square head, with plain spandrils of ordinary panelling. On each side of the door are four niches, with their usual accompaniments of crocketted canopies, pinnacles, and pendants, and instead of brackets, the statues stood on pedestals with good bases and capitals. Above this entrance is the great west window of the nave, deeply and richly recessed; it is of eight lights, with elaborate tracery, of some breadth just below the spring of the arch, and above this some simple tracery of the kind most common to the latest age of the pointed style. The arch of the window is much depressed, and has above it a flowing crocketted canopy, the gable has no parapet, but is finished off with a simple coping. The flanking turrets before-mentioned are octagonal, and have belts of panelled tracery and embattled parapets.