e excavations which brought to light the old foundations of the
original west front showed "a wall of 128 feet from north to south, and
12 feet thick, with returns at each end of the same thickness 60 feet in
length. At their eastern ends the walls again turn in at right angles
and meet the present side aisles at 17 feet from each corner. Within the
parallelogram thus partially traced two other walls run from east to
west at a distance of 36 feet from each other." In a garden adjoining
the west end of the cathedral at the time when these observations were
made, part of the south-west angle of the walls still remained.
Indications of the western towers were apparent; and Willis suggests
that they were probably either unfinished, or in a threatening
condition, so that Edingdon demolished them; even as at Gloucester the
western towers of the cathedral were removed, and the _facade_ was
replaced by a perpendicular west front at the beginning of the fifteenth
century.

[Illustration: EDINGDON'S WINDOWS IN NORTH-WEST BAYS.
North West Bay.
Winchester Cathedral.
H.P. Clifford

From a Drawing by H.P. Clifford.]

The original west front may very probably have been similar to that of
Lincoln Cathedral, "unornamental," says a writer in _Architecture_,
"save for some interlacing arches and dwarf blind arcades, and with no
windows to reflect the setting sun, or to light the cavernous interior."

The two westernmost bays of the #North side# are due to Edingdon, and we
get here well contrasted the work of Edingdon and of Wykeham. In
Willis's plan the difference can be clearly seen. The two windows to the
right are heavier, lower, and broader, and display much deeper exterior
mouldings, with "a most cavernous and gloomy appearance," while the
window on the left hand is much narrower and lighter. The left-hand
buttress is like the others on the north side of the church, whereas the
other three are different from it and from one another, that on the
extreme right, together with its pinnacle, being apparently just as
Edingdon left it. The pinnacles and upper set-off of the two centre
buttresses in the figure were added by Wykeham to Edingdon's underwork.
The mouldings of Wykeham's windows are more elaborate than those of
Edingdon's, where the tracery is similar to that of the west window. Of
the bays on the north side the nine next to Edingdon's two, together
with the three beyond the northern transept, are Wykeham's work, as are
the