e when all three towers were crowned with lofty
spires. And, even as it stands, the exterior of Ripon is dignified and
not unworthy of its commanding site. The size of the clearstorey
windows, the severity of the transept, the obvious variety of style and
date throughout the building--these are the features that strike the
observer most forcibly.

Several kinds of material have been employed. Up to almost the end of
the thirteenth century the builders used a coarse gritstone such as is
found five miles to the south-west at Brimham Rocks, and also a finer
gritstone or sandstone that may have come from Hackfall. After that date
they built with magnesian limestone, brought partly, perhaps, from near
York, but chiefly, it would seem, from Quarry Moor, a mile south of the
city. At the last restoration the older parts were repaired with
Hackfall stone, and the later parts with limestone from Quarry Moor and
Monkton Moor, and so extensive were the repairs needed on the exterior,
that the church somewhat belies, by its appearance, its real antiquity.

The most picturesque approach is from High St. Agnes-gate by a flight of
steps, which ascend through an old arch to an avenue of limes that leads
up to the south door; but it is better, perhaps, that the survey should
begin at the west end.

=The West Front= was doubtless the object of two indulgences, issued
respectively by Archbishop de Gray in 1233 and by Pope Alexander IV. in
1258, and was therefore erected just before or during the struggle
between Henry III. and Simon de Montfort, in the best period of the
Early English style.

The height of the gable is said to be 103 feet, and that of the towers
110 feet, and the front is divided by the string-courses into four
stages. In the central compartment the lowest stage is approached by
three steps, and is filled by three doorways, set in a thickening of the
wall, and surmounted by gables finished with crosses. The central
entrance, higher, more widely splayed, and more deeply recessed than the
others, has five orders and five triple shafts in the jamb, while they
have three orders and three shafts, the innermost of which is triple and
the others single. As usual in this style, the shafts are detached and
not worked on the stones of the jamb. The mouldings of the capitals are
carried through the jamb from end to end, and on the front of the piers
between the archways is a curious moulding which resembles an undercut
roll set u