“Lincoln is an old confused town, very long, uneven, steep and ragged, formerly full of good houses, especially churches and abbeys. The minster almost comparable to that of York itself, abounding with marble pillars, and having a fair front (here was interred Queen Eleanora, the loyal and loving wife who sucked the poison out of her husband’s wound); the abbot founder, with rare carving in the stone; the great bell, or Tom, as they call it. I went up the steeple, from whence is a goodly prospect all over the country. The soldiers had lately knocked off most of the brasses from the gravestones, so as few inscriptions were left; they told us that these men went in with axes and hammers, and shut themselves in, till they had rent and torn off some bargeloads of metal, not sparing even the monuments of the dead; so hellish an avarice possessed them: besides which, they exceedingly ruined the city.” We are now able to analyze the =West Front=, knowing the periods of the great screen wall, with its Gothic arcading and the octagonal stair turrets capped by tall pyramids that terminate the ends; the two tall square towers, Norman below, Perpendicular above; the three great recesses pierced with windows and doors; the gable above the recess with seven arches (two pierced with windows and two containing statues) in a row and one above with angels. We must note that upon the southern turret stands a statue of St. Hugh; and The Swineherd of Stow, who contributed a peck of silver pennies towards building the Cathedral, ornaments the northern one. It is a copy of the original, now in the Cloisters. The tracery of the windows in the three recesses is supposed to date from the end of the Fourteenth Century. The big west window and the cinquefoil window above were placed there in Grosseteste’s rule (1235-1253). The central door and those on either side of it, date from the Twelfth Century, and give the best possible idea of the Romanesque period just before it merged into Gothic. Above the central door are eleven kings, from William the Conqueror to Edward III. These statues date from 1350 and were originally coloured and gilt. The two western towers (Norman) were built in the Twelfth Century. The arcading (which is not the same in both) shows where they ended and where the Perpendicular stories were added, carrying them two hundred feet higher. Like the central tower, they were originally crowned with tall wooden spires, covered with lead. These spires became unsafe and were removed in 1807. In the northern, or =St. Mary’s=, hung “Great Tom of Lincoln” and its successor until 1834. The southern tower, called =St. Hugh’s=, has a ring of eight bells. Under St. Hugh’s the =Ringers’ Chapel= is naturally situated; and there is a corresponding chapel under =St. Mary’s Tower=.