A B C of Gothic Architecture

by John Henry Parker

The earliest Norman Vaults are quite plain, and of the barrel form, as in the chapel of the White Tower, London. In the next stage they have flat transverse arches only; they are then groined, but still without ribs: these plain groined vaults without ribs, over aisles or other narrow spaces, are often contemporaneous with the barrel vaults, and generally belong to the latter half of the eleventh century, or the beginning of the twelfth, as at Sherborne Castle, built by Roger, bishop of Salisbury, A.D. 1115-1139; at a later period ribs are introduced, at first square, then plain half-rounds, then molded, as in Peterborough Cathedral, A.D. 1117-1143, and they gradually change their form until they almost imperceptibly assume the character of Early English work.

The Norman architects did not venture to throw a vault over a wide space until very near the end of the style, and various contrivances were necessary for vaulting over spaces of unequal width, such as stilted arches, and horse-shoe arches, before the difficulty was solved by the use of the pointed arch. The absence of vaults over a wide space is a proof that the Norman was not a continuation of Roman work, as is sometimes assumed, but that there was always an interval of at least a century in which there were no masons.

Early Norman Turrets are very rarely to be met with, but there are good examples at St. Alban’s; at a later period they are frequent as stair-turrets, but have generally lost the original roof or capping; sometimes, as at Iffley, and Christchurch, Hampshire, they die into the tower below the corbel-table; in other instances, as at Bishop’s Cleeve and Bredon, they are carried up above the parapet and terminate in pinnacles; they are sometimes round and sometimes square.

St. Cross, Winchester.

At St. Cross, Winchester, there is a remarkable example, something between a turret and a large square pinnacle, rising from the top of the side wall to the level of the front of the gables, and even above it.

Norman Central Towers are very low and massive, seldom rising more than a square above the roof, sometimes not so much, the ridge of the original roof, as shewn by the weather-table on the face of the tower, being only just below the parapet. These towers were intended to be, and without doubt originally were, covered by low wooden pyramidal roofs, resembling in appearance those which we find in some parts of Normandy of the same period, there executed in stone, on account of the abundance of the material, the facility with which it is worked, and the skill of the workmen.

When the towers are not placed over the centre of the church, but at the west end, it is remarkable that the later Norman towers are more massive and not so lofty as the early ones, as at Lincoln, Jarrow, &c., already described. They are comparatively low and heavy, sometimes diminishing by stages, and having buttresses of little projection on the lower parts. The belfry, or upper storey, has frequently been added in late Norman times upon the earlier towers. The belfry windows are generally double, and divided by a shaft. Towers of the pre-Norman period are generally remarkably tall, as at Deerhurst, one of the best dated examples.

The Round Towers which are so abundant in Norfolk and Suffolk are frequently of the Norman period; some may be earlier, and others are certainly later; they are often so entirely devoid of all ornament or character, that it is impossible to say to what age they belong. The towers themselves are commonly, but not always, built of flint, sometimes of rough stone rubble, and are built round to suit the material, and to save the expense of the cut stone quoins for the corners which are necessary for square towers, and which often may not have been easy to procure in districts where building-stone has all to be imported. The same cause accounts for the frequent and long-continued use in the same districts of flat bricks or tiles for turning the arches over the doors and windows, which are either of Roman manufacture, or an imitation of the same form. Some good authorities think that the Roman form of flat bricks or tiles was long imitated in England.