were suggested; the mere removal of a single stone to make it more secure was declared quite unnecessary; the taking down a gable to rebuild it was denounced as Vandalism.  Much strong language and many hard words were used which had better be forgotten.  It certainly seems difficult to explain how the objectors to the course that had been decided upon could write of the west front that it was “superficially, in a fair state of preservation,” or that it was “literally without a patch or blemish.”  The present writer was for twenty years a member of the cathedral foundation, and lived just opposite the west front.  He made a special study of the history and fabric of the cathedral.  Hardly a year passed without something falling down; sometimes a piece of a pinnacle, sometimes a crocket or other ornament, sometimes a shaft.  Old engravings of the spires show the pinnacles broken.  Many of the shafts are wanting.  Some have been replaced in wood.  Many wholly new ones were put up by Dean Monk.  And concerning the north arch, which was notoriously the most dangerous, Dean Patrick has recorded that Bishop Laney gave L100 toward the repairing one of the great arches of the church porch “which was faln down in the late times.”  Dean Monk also, in a memoir of his predecessor Dean Duport,[19] speaks of the efforts of the cathedral body to repair the devastation caused by the civil war, and says “in particular one of the three large arches of the West Front, the beauty of which is acknowledged to be without rival, having fallen down, it was restored in all its original magnificence.”  In an account of the cathedral published by the writer thirty years ago, he says of this arch:  “Its present state looks dangerous from below.  The stones in the arch have some sad gaps.  It is tied up by iron bands, and further protected within by a great number of wooden pegs, not of recent construction.  When last observed it leant forward 141/2 inches.”  In 1893 he wrote:  “there is no doubt that the security of the whole front is a most serious question that before long must demand energetic action.”

[Illustration:  Finial of the Central Gable of the West Front.]

A very great preponderance of local opinion was in favour of the action of the Dean and Chapter.  When it came to moving the stones, after all the rubbish was removed, it was found that the mortar had crumbled into mere dust, and could be swept away; and that the stones themselves could be lifted from their positions, without the use of any tool.  What has actually been done is this:  the north gable has been taken down with the outer orders of the archivolt for a depth of some feet, and rebuilt; the innermost order has not been moved.  Relieving arches have been put in at the back.  The gable is now believed to be perfectly secure.  The cross on the summit was replaced in its position on July 2nd, 1897.  The south gable was afterwards taken down and rebuilt, a very few new stones being used to bond the masonry where a fracture had been found on the left side of the great arch below.  This is what has been called “the destruction” of the west front.