THE PREVALENCE OF STRAIGHT LINKS, BOTH HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL, IN THE TRACERY OF WINDOWS, IN PANELS AND ARCADES.
Exterior Compartment.
The Walls and Buttresses of this Period present great contrasts, being generally perfectly plain, but occasionally, in the richer buildings, completely covered with rectangular panelling.
The Base-course is often deep, rises in several stages, and contains a few large bold mouldings.
The mullions of the Windows almost invariably rise vertically through the Tracery, and are often crossed at right angles by other straight lines, as well in the lower part of the Window as in the Tracery itself.
These Transoms in some of the larger East and West Windows, occurring at equal intervals, divide the entire design into a series of rectangular compartments, and give to the whole the appearance of a huge gridiron. They are sometimes ornamented with a small battlemented moulding.
The Clere-story Windows, as well as the side windows, where the aisle walls are low, are often square-headed.
The Cornice generally carries a large shallow hollow, filled at intervals with a square flat leaf, and grotesque sculptures. Gurgoyles, formed usually of the head and shoulders of some monster, and projecting from the cornice, for the purpose of carrying the water from the gutters clear of the walls, which occur in the former Period, are now universal.
The Parapets are frequently ornamented richly, with rectangular foliated panelling, and covered with a Battlement. Both are sometimes pierced instead of being panelled.