Ripon Cathedral

George Gilbert Scott set things right when he undertook the thoroughgoing restoration that began in 1862 — one of his "least controversial" restoration projects, one which involved replacing his nineteenth-century predecessors' unsuitable alterations, restoring harmony to the interior, underpinning the west towers, and strengthening the crossing tower (Leach and Pevsner 641). Scott himself expressed pleasure in having saved the west towers, which were "imminently threatened with destruction" (416). The west front is sometimes described as austere, but Pevsner quite rightly expressed his appreciation of its beautiful "clarity and balance"