Architecture (full page print)details

The characteristic marks of this [early Norman] style are these: The walls are very thick, generally without buttresses; the arches, both within and without, as well as those over the doors and windows, semicircular, and suported [sic] by very solid, or rather clumsy columns, with a kind of regular base and capital: in short, plainness and solidity constitute the striking features of this method of building. nevertheless, the architects of those days sometimes deviated from this rule: their capitals were adorned with carvings of foliage, and even animals’ and their massive columns decorated with small half columns united to them, and their surfaces ornamented with spirals, squares, lozenge network and other figures, either engraved, or in relievo: various instances of these may be seen in the cathedral of Canterbury, particularly the undercroft, the monastaty at Lindisfarne or Holy Island, the cathedral at Durham, and the ruined choir at Orford in Suffolk. (p. 112)