As a design, the west front offers four important parts for observation; these are the two towers, the west wall of the nave proper, with the gable and the windows which compose it, and then the porch. The #Towers# are now similar. The upper stage of that on the north is an imitation, as far as possible, of the same section of the other tower which was built in the thirteenth century. In its third stage some differences are introduced. The masonry of the new work is executed so as to carry on the courses of the old stonework that attach it to the rest of the front. The new work has followed the custom of the older and better traditions of the stonemasons, in that it has been left strictly as it was finished by the tool upon the "banker." The natural and simple texture imparted by the action of chiselling leaves a character upon the stonework similar to that of the earlier work. The upper portion of the new north-west tower [29] being copied from that part of the old one to the south, it will be enough to describe the original. But first it is necessary to notice the lower stage of the southern tower. The buttressing on the south angle is of a later date than the rest of this section of the tower. It has a low weathered base. The central part of it has its projection at the base reduced when it reaches its summit by means of three steep sloping weatherings. There are also openings in the buttress for the staircase windows. The two lower windows of the west front in this tower are not placed in the same vertical line. This peculiarity has been followed in the new tower. The upper of these two windows is pointed, and has no label-mould. But the angle shafts that carry the arch have carved capitals and square-moulded abaci. Above the head of the pointed window the tower changes in character. The buttresses run up to the top as broad, flat surfaces, except that the northern one is slightly weathered twice. The coupled windows are more deeply recessed, having three orders of moulded arch-stones instead of the two, as in the lower window of a similar date; and the arch is carried by three shafts attached as parts of the jamb-stones. The windows have label-moulds over them, and the abaci of the capitals are carried across the buttresses on either side as a string-course. By this means the lines of the composition are continued horizontally, notwithstanding the interruption by the openings in the walling. These are now glazed as windows; but they were originally open, as some bells once hung in the tower at this level. [29] By the late J.L. Pearson, R.A., and completed by his son. [Illustration: THE NORTH-EAST ANGLE OF THE SOUTH-WEST TOWER. _S.B. Bolas & Co., photo_.]