side of the lower part of these windows is a trefoil-headed niche containing a figure.  Below these, and resting upon the long stringcourse that runs above the great arches, are sets of seven trefoil-headed niches, with a half-niche at each end.  Four of these niches are pierced for windows, which have trefoils with pointed heads, though the trefoil heads of the niches themselves are round at the top.  The three intervening niches contain figures.  All these nine figures have a nimbus; and as these, with the three under the crosses, make up twelve, it is assumed that they represent the Apostles.  The six smaller statues, just above, are said to be kings; the twelve below, benefactors.  There are thus thirty statues in all, and most were no doubt carved at the time of the erection of the front; but two or three appear to be of earlier date, and may possibly have formed part of the embellishments of the Saxon church.

[Illustration:  Gates to West Porch.]

=The Towers north and south=, up to the height of the parapets, are of the same date as the portion already described.  They are ornamented with blank arcading in six stages, of different dimensions and character; all is in perfect harmony with the rest of the composition.  The loftiest of the stages of this arcading has a sub-division with round arches; and the stage above the great stringcourse has round-headed trefoils so as to be in keeping with the row of similar arches in the gables; but with these two exceptions all the arches on the arcades of the tower are pointed and without cusps.  Of the spires which surmount these towers that on the south is by far the more elegant.  It has pinnacles at the corners of square section, and then another set of triangular pinnacles, resting on open arches connecting the corner pinnacles with the spire.  These triangular pinnacles are double the height of those at the corners.  All the pinnacles and canopies over the arches have crockets.  This spire is some few feet loftier than that to the north, though most measurements of the cathedral have hitherto given them as being of the same height.

The inner wall of the portico, forming the west wall of the cathedral, is covered with elaborate arcading, and so also are the ends, north and south.  The designs are nearly a continuation of the arcading on the two towers.  There are five lofty windows, now filled with tracery inserted in the Perpendicular period, the great west window having been enlarged at the same time.  The two side doorways are exceedingly good, and should be carefully examined.  The central doorway must have been of still greater beauty; but the whole of the upper part of it is hidden by the porch and parvise inserted beneath the central arch.  This doorway is divided by a fine pillar rising from a well-carved base, with a very curious scene depicted on it.  “It represents,” writes Canon Davys,[22] “a Benedictine tortured by demons, and was doubtless intended as a significant hint to the monks that a sacred calling demands a consistent life.”  The portico retains its original Early English vaulting.