Porches.—The Early English porch differs from the Norman in being brought forward from the wall, leaving a considerable space between that and the front of the porch. This space is generally lighted by open windows on the sides, and ornamented in the interior with arcades, and having a stone bench running down each side. The front usually terminates in a very acutely-pointed gable, sometimes plain and sometimes moulded, and having a rich doorway, which is in general elaborately moulded and ornamented with the tooth ornament. The jambs have rows of shafts with capitals and bases, similar to the doorways before described, but frequently much more rich.

Buttresses.—Unlike those of Norman buildings, the buttresses of this period project boldly from the wall, and tend greatly to shake off the flatness of appearance so observable in the former style. They are commonly finished by pediments, and are sometimes connected by arches with the clerestory, when they are called flying buttresses.

Pinnacles are now used, but they are more like turrets, being much larger than those of the succeeding styles. They are in general ornamented with small shafts and arches.

Piers and Pillars.—It is in these, more perhaps than in anything else, that we see the difference between a Norman and an Early English building. In the former, the architects, being deficient in mediæval skill, sought to remedy this defect, and to give strength to their buildings, by piling together large masses of masonry; while in the latter period, trusting to their scientific knowledge and the new principle of vaulting which they had just developed, they gradually reduced the strength of their piers, first by cutting their heavy round mass into a bundle of pillars all connected together, and afterwards separating these pillars, so that at the last the piers frequently consisted only of a central pillar, surrounded by a number of small detached shafts connected with the central one merely by the capital and base, and by bands placed at intervals on the shafts. Some fine specimens of this kind of pillar occur at Salisbury, where the lightness is carried to such excess that it seems wonderful how such slender shafts can support such heavy weights. These elaborate pillars are found only in the cathedrals or large churches; in smaller buildings the pillars are generally plain, either round or octagonal; but they may always be distinguished by the moulding and foliage of their capitals, and by their bases.

THE CHOIR OF LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. (See p. [315.])

(From a photograph by Frith and Co.)

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Capitals, Foliage, and Bases.—These differ in many essential particulars from those of the Norman period, though in early buildings some of the Norman characters still remain. The abacus, the upper moulding or member of the capital, is in Norman work square; in pure Early English it is circular; its section in the first is square, sloped with the lower edge, or chamfered off; in the last it is moulded, having two bold round mouldings, with a deep hollow between them. The foliage of this period is very different from that of any other. It consists of a kind of leaf rising, with a stiff stem, from the neck-moulding of the capital, and turning over in various graceful forms under the abacus. It is from the circumstance of its rising from a stem that it is sometimes called stiff-leaved foliage; but nothing can be farther from stiffness, the utmost grace and elegance being displayed in its design and execution. It sometimes takes the form shown in the specimen from Salisbury, and sometimes that of a trefoil, as in the one from Lincoln. The bases are well moulded, the general section being that of two round mouldings, the lower projecting beyond the upper, with a deep hollow between.