triforium, as at Durham, Winchester, and many other fine Norman buildings; but in this style it is carried up higher, and is altogether external, spanning over the roof of the aisle, and carrying the weight and consequent thrust of the vault over the central space obliquely down to the external buttresses, and so to the ground, as in St. Hugh’s choir at Lincoln, beforementioned as the earliest example of this style. There is a very fine example of a compound flying buttress at Westminster Abbey, which supports the vaults of the choir, the triforium, and the aisles, and carries the thrust of the whole over the cloister to the ground. But they did not become common until after this period. There is a marked difference between the flying buttresses of English buildings and those of French work of the same time; the English are far more elegant; large French buildings often appear as if they were surrounded by a scaffolding of stone.
The Fronts of Early English buildings before the introduction of tracery, and consequently before the use of large windows, have a very peculiar appearance, very different from those of the preceding or succeeding styles. In small churches a common arrangement is to have either three lancet windows in the west front, as at Stanton Harcourt, Oxon, p. 92, or two with a buttress between them at the west end, as at Elsfield, Oxon; but in both cases there is frequently over them a quatrefoil or small circular window foliated, or sunk panels of the same form, but not pierced as windows. In large buildings there are frequently two or three tiers of lancet windows, and a rich circular window in the gable above.
South-west View of Elsfield Church, Oxon.
Early English Towers are in general more lofty than the Norman, and are readily distinguished by their buttresses, which have a greater projection. In the earlier examples an arcade is frequently carried round the upper storey, some of the arches of which are pierced for windows, as at Middleton Stoney, Oxon: but in later buildings the windows are more often double, and are frequently very fine compositions, as at Ravensthorpe, Northants. The tower generally terminates in a Spire, which in some districts, especially in Northamptonshire, does not rise from within a parapet, but is of the form usually called a broach spire, of which there are several varieties. In other districts the towers are terminated by original parapets; these probably had wooden spires rising within the parapet, which occasionally but rarely remain, and are a good feature, as at Ilton, Somerset. Pinnacles are sometimes inserted at the angles, and produce a very good effect.
The spire is generally a very fine feature of an Early English church; some great architects have gone so far as to say that a tower is never complete without one, but that is going too far. There may have been wooden spires on such towers as those of Middleton Stoney and Ravensthorpe, but we have no evidence of it; there are no squinches to carry a spire.
| Middleton Stoney, Oxon, c. A.D. 1240. | Ravensthorpe, Northants, c. A.D. 1260. |