es of most English cathedrals. It is not
a mere undistinguished ending to the church, like those at Norwich and
Winchester, and it is not a magnificent misrepresentation of the height
or width of the building itself, like the west fronts at Peterborough
and Lincoln. Most of the English cathedrals are not lofty or wide enough
to give opportunities for an impressive facade, unless they are fronted
with a mere screen of masonry; but this is not the case at York. No
other Gothic church in England is so wide, and only Westminster Abbey is
as lofty. The builder, therefore, was not tempted to any expedient to
conceal the dimensions of his church, and so the front consists of the
natural end of the nave, of which a great part is filled by the west
window, with a gable above it representing the space between the vault
and the roof, and with the porch below it. It is flanked by two towers
built in front of the aisles, with two smaller porches at the base of
each. The three divisions of the west front are marked by buttresses,
prominent and richly ornamented, one on each side of the west window and
two at the external corners of the towers. The buttresses, covered with
niches and panelling, grow narrower and less prominent as they rise,
until they are cut short with three cornered caps some feet below the
battlements of the towers. The central window and the principal entrance
are surrounded with niches, and there is an elaborate gable above each
of them. The west front exhibits three different styles; the lowest
part, containing the porches and the west windows of the aisle, being of
the geometrical Decorated style; the middle portion, including the great
west window, the gables above it, and the middle windows of the towers
of the later or curvilinear Decorated; and the towers above the roof,
Perpendicular of the fifteenth century. The central gable and the great
west window are almost flamboyant in their decoration. A battlement
immediately above the central window runs right across the front. The
niches on the buttresses are in four storeys, and those on the central
part of the front in six, of varying heights. There is also a row of
niches on the towers immediately above the ornamental gable of the aisle
windows, and the upper part of each tower is covered with niches. The
greater part of these niches above the two lowest rows do not appear to
have ever contained sculpture. The bases of the lowest row of niches are
richly ornam