A spire said to have been even higher than this of St. Paul’s was erected in the fourteenth century over the central tower at Lincoln. The two western towers also had spires which were taken down to save the cost of repair within this century. This group of three great leaded spires crowning the Hill-city must have been one of the most wonderful the whole world over. The central tower as it now stands is 270 feet high 54 feet on the face; it was finished in 1311. “The spire of timber covered with lead reaching a height of 524 feet which once surmounted it was destroyed by a tempest in 1548.”[6] [6] _Cathedral Guide._ The plates in Dugdale’s _Monasticon_ engraved by Hollar and others surprise us by the number of leaded spires to the cathedrals not one of which has survived storm and flames or the crueller hatred of beauty which the modern mind has developed. There are those of the two west towers of Durham, western spires at Canterbury, Peterborough, and Ely, all three at Lincoln, and four smaller pinnacles at Norwich. Two square pyramids shown to the west tower of Southwell, were probably the original covering of the twelfth century. These are now “restored” and they look as false as the word. The great central spires at Rochester and at Hereford and the central and two western spires at Ripon are shown of lead, as is also that of the beautiful isolated belfry at Salisbury, which was destroyed “to improve the view of the cathedral.” Of three of these large central spires shown in Dugdale, Rochester and Hereford rise from square towers with “broaches”: the first is of a curious and yet happy form, with recessed faces, and the other is an octagon of which the cardinal faces are wider than the alternate sides. The great spire of Ripon rose within the stone parapet of the tower, apparently at first twelve-sided with gables, and the spire itself twenty-four, each pair making a slight reentering angle--a beautiful composition it must have been of light and delicate shadow on the silver white of the old lead. This fair colour is of great importance; several of the old spires which remain to us are as white as if whitewashed. Modern ones, like the grimy thing at Lynn, would be improved by being whitewashed. The old, that at Minster in Kent for instance, tell as bright high lights in a general view of the landscape such as that you obtain from Richborough.