All that was now lacking to the fabric of the church was the completion of the western towers. The general effect of these towers is so exactly alike that no one would guess that nearly fifty years passed between the building of the two. A minute examination will reveal certain small differences. The height of the two towers is not exactly the same, and a niche which is found on one is not repeated on the other. But these are not differences of style: they are just the same kind of differences as those which we find at an earlier time between the different parts of the nave. Still it is strange to find that a gap of so many years had made absolutely no difference at all in style strictly so called. But this, at this time at least, is characteristic of the district. The Perpendicular style was introduced into Somersetshire very early, and it remained in use for a long time without any material change. Between the earliest and the latest examples there undoubtedly is a difference, but it is a difference much slighter than is usual in other parts of the country. In many cases there is no perceptible difference of style between buildings separated by an interval of a good many years. I have therefore always declined to guess at the dates of Perpendicular buildings in Somersetshire, when no documentary evidence could be brought forward; and I think that the case of the western towers of Wells shows that I have been discreet in so doing. I do not think that any one would have found out the difference in date between these towers by simply looking at them, and I think that any one would have been inclined, from simply looking at them, to place the earlier of the two a good deal later than its real date. I must confess that, knowing as I do that they are nearly fifty years apart, I sometimes find it hard to remember whether it is the northern or the southern tower which is the older. In fact, the southern one is the older. It was built in the time of John Harewell, who was Bishop from 1366 to 1386, at the joint cost of himself and the Chapter, the Chapter paying two-thirds and the Bishop one.[16] The tower therefore belongs to the very first days of the Perpendicular style; it must have followed so soon upon the east window of the choir, that we may count the completion of the western towers as really parts of the same work as the changes in the eastern part of the church. The other, the northern tower, was built in the days, and largely at the cost, of Bishop Bubwith,[17] whose name is well known to us all by reason of his hospital and his chantry chapel. He has also a special place in the municipal history of the city, through his gift of the old Guildhall to the citizens. His episcopate lasted from 1408 to 1424, so that the very considerable difference of date between the building of the two towers is clearly marked.