This west front is flat, with octagonal turrets at each side, and consists of two towers and a central part. The central part has a doorway, a large window, and an acute pediment, the top point of the pediment being almost on a level with the parapet of the towers where the spires commence. These rise from between square pinnacles, enriched with feathered panels and crockets at the angles of the towers. The front is in three stages; the lowest stage contains the three doorways, and is surmounted by a very elaborate arcading filled with statues of kings. The second is covered with two storeys of arcading, and is divided into two parts by the large west window, above which is the pediment. The third stage consists of the upper part of the two towers; these are surmounted with parapets with lozenge-shaped mouldings inclosing quatrefoil and trefoil panels. There are windows to the belfry floors in this stage. Altogether, including these two belfry windows, there are only three windows in this front; this is unusual, as there are commonly windows at the west end of the nave aisles. It is not easy to give a clear description of this front, or any which will convey its superb effect. As we see by the frontispiece, it is not only thickly covered with arcading and statues, but also it is very much enriched with trefoils, quatrefoils, and cinquefoils, especially in the spaces over the doors in the lowest stage, and in the pediment above the great window. The prevalence of the ball-flower decoration should not escape notice; upon the third stage and the spires it constantly occurs, although it is not encountered in the first and second stages, except in the modern tracery of the west window. The ball-flower is a fourteenth-century ornament: its constant use in the upper parts, contrasted with its total absence in the lower parts, supplies a very strong argument that a considerable time elapsed between the construction of the two lower stages and the upper. The very careful examination which took place when the whole front was lately restored revealed the fact that work was not proceeded with continuously; and by expert opinion the lowest stage is assigned to 1280, the next to 1300, while the upper stages are still later; and perhaps the whole was not completed until well on into the last half of the fourteenth century.