Q. How is the buttress of this age distinguished?
A. In general by its plain triangular or pedimental head, its projecting more from the building than the Norman buttress, and from its being less in breadth. It is also sometimes carried up above the parapet wall. The edges of the buttresses are sometimes chamfered; and plain buttresses in stages finished with simple slopes are not uncommon. We very rarely find buttresses of this style disposed at the angles of buildings, though such disposition was common in the succeeding style; but two buttresses placed at right angles with each other, and with the face of the wall, generally occur at the angles of churches in this style. Flying buttresses were sometimes used to strengthen the clerestory walls of large buildings, and have a light and elegant effect.
Q. Were the walls differently built?
A. They were not so thick as those of an earlier period, which occasioned the want of stronger buttresses to support them.
Pottern, Wilts. | Hartlepool, Durham. |
Q. Were the Early English roofs of a different construction from those of a later style?
A. The Norman and Early English roofs were high and acutely pointed. The original roofs of most of our old churches, from their exposure to the weather, have long since fallen to decay, and been replaced by others of a more obtuse shape; but in general the height and angular form of the original roof may be ascertained by the weather moulding still remaining on the side of the tower or steeple. The interior vaulting of stone roofs was composed of fewer parts and ribs, which were often not more numerous than those of Norman vaulting, and does not present that complexity of arrangement which occurs in the vaulting-ribs of subsequent styles. In the cathedral of Salisbury also in the nave of Wells Cathedral are simple and good examples of Early English vaulting. A curious groined roof, in which the ribs are of wood—plain, cut with chamfered edges—and the cells of the vaulting are covered with boards, is to be met with in the church of Warmington, Northamptonshire, a very rich, perfect, and interesting specimen of this style.
Q. Was not the spire introduced at this period?