It is not easy to give a clear description of this front, or any which will convey its superb effect. As we see by the frontispiece, it is not only thickly covered with arcading and statues, but also it is very much enriched with trefoils, quatrefoils, and cinquefoils, especially in the spaces over the doors in the lowest stage, and in the pediment above the great window. The prevalence of the ball-flower decoration should not escape notice; upon the third stage and the spires it constantly occurs, although it is not encountered in the first and second stages, except in the modern tracery of the west window. The ball-flower is a fourteenth-century ornament: its constant use in the upper parts, contrasted with its total absence in the lower parts, supplies a very strong argument that a considerable time elapsed between the construction of the two lower stages and the upper. The very careful examination which took place when the whole front was lately restored revealed the fact that work was not proceeded with continuously; and by expert opinion the lowest stage is assigned to 1280, the next to 1300, while the upper stages are still later; and perhaps the whole was not completed until well on into the last half of the fourteenth century.
As has been stated before, the present appearance of the west front is that of an entirely new building. In 1820 the front, which is said to have been then in a very dilapidated condition, was covered with Roman cement. So thoroughly was this done that the original stone facing only showed on the eastern side of the north-west tower. Careful drawings of the tracery there were made by Sir Gilbert Scott, and in 1877 the work of reconstructing was commenced. It took seven years, and the new west front was dedicated in 1884. Only five of the old statues remained, and it was decided to restore the others. There are in all one hundred and thirteen niches in the west front, including those on the north and south faces of the side turrets; all but four are now filled, and about one hundred are in view of any one standing facing the middle of the front.
The large West Window has undergone several changes in its tracery; fortunately we have pictures showing all of them. In Fuller's "Church History" the tracery, as shown in Hollar's engraving, appears to be very simple. This tracery was all destroyed in the Civil Wars; and that which replaced it at the Restoration was provided by James II., when Duke of York, but it was so ugly and unsuitable to the whole spirit of the cathedral that it was removed in 1869, and is now replaced by work which, though greatly differing from the original, yet preserves the spirit of fourteenth-century work. The Restoration window may be seen in the beautiful engraving in Britton's "Cathedral Antiquities."
There also is an engraving of the great west door as it was in the early part of the century, and before the Roman cement era of which mention has just been made. This doorway, one of the most beautiful in the country, has much in common with the "Prior's doorway" on the south side of Lincoln Cathedral. As Britton says: "Both are peculiarly rich and fanciful and calculated to excite the warmest admiration," but in his time the sculptured foliage and the figures running round the architrave mouldings and between the columns were so much battered and injured that it was almost impossible to tell the characters of some of them. This doorway is a recessed porch, the outer arch, in line with the main walls, being cusped and foliated with elaborate carving; the inner portion is divided into two arches; the whole being most elaborately decorated with carvings. The central clustered supports has a figure of the Virgin and Child, and on either side of the doorway, standing on clustered pillars beneath canopies, are figures of St. Mary Magdalene (on the north) with the box of ointment, and on the south, Mary the wife of Cleophas; farther forward on each side are vacant pedestals, and in the front are St. John the Evangelist (on the north) and St. Paul (on the south). Whether these were the characters originally represented is open to doubt; Stukeley suggested that what was left in his time represented the Virgin in the centre, and the four Evangelists with Moses and Aaron.
The bas-relief figures in the architrave already mentioned have been restored to represent the two genealogies of Christ as given by St. Matthew and St. Luke, on the north and south sides respectively, as follows:—
North side: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Boaz, Jesse, David, Virgin and Child.
South side: Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Shem, Judah, and St. Joseph; the Virgin and St. Joseph being the two figures at the top of the arch.
There is a very beautiful fourteenth-century bas-relief above the central pillar of the doorway, representing Our Lord in Glory, with an angel on each side, having a serpent under his feet.
The doors are covered with fine iron work, which, with the exception of that on the lowest panel, is supposed to be original.