In Decorated buildings the windows are larger and divided into a greater number of lights than in Early English, the heads being filled with tracery of geometrical design; the façades are more complicated and at the same time less effective, the towers and spires are loftier and supplemented by many pinnacles and finials, flying buttresses are multiplied; parapets with pierced openings, canopied niches containing figures and other purely decorative features give to the exteriors a great richness of general appearance. In the interiors the simple Early English vaulting is superseded by roofs divided into a great number of different compartments, the points of intersection being marked by stone bosses or masses of carving, whilst increased lavishness of decoration characterises every portion of the building, mouldings of a great variety, amongst which the ballflower is of frequent occurrence, being introduced wherever possible.
In Perpendicular Gothic, as its name implies, the vertical tendency became ever more and more marked; towers, spires, and pinnacles became more and more numerous, all decreasing in bulk and increasing in height. Turrets with many airy finials, springing from flying buttresses that were adorned with figures of lions, dragons, and other symbolic creatures, rise above equally ornate parapets, the dignified single-centred arch was replaced by a four-centred form, and rectilinear lines superseded the beautifully flowing tracery of earlier windows. It was, however, the complex and exquisitely delicate groined roofing that chiefly characterised the Perpendicular style, lending to the interior of the buildings in which it was employed an ethereal charm that has never been surpassed. In the so-called fan-tracery roof, that was the culmination of this distinctive form of vaulting, the entire surface of the roof is covered with radiating ribs resembling the sections of an outspread fan, connected by bands of trefoil or quatrefoil ornament known as cusping, and, in some cases—notably in that of Henry VII's chapel at Westminster—with pendant stalactite ornaments drooping from the point of intersection of the groins. In some Perpendicular buildings, as in the Churches of S. Stephen and S. Peter's Mancroft at Norwich, ornate open timber roofs, enriched with beautiful carving, take the place of those of stone, and in the final or Tudor phase of the style such roofs, to which the name of hammer beam has been given, and of which those of Wolsey's Great Hall at Hampton Court and of Westminster Hall are good examples, were almost as elaborate as the fan-tracery variety. Characteristic features of secular Tudor buildings are the extensive use of panelling, the bow or projecting window rising direct from the ground, the oriel window or window supported by a corbel of stone often finely carved, battlements with open tracery work and richly decorated gables, fine specimens of all of which are to be seen at Hampton Court Palace.
One of the earliest Gothic structures in England is the choir of Canterbury Cathedral, designed by the Burgundian Williams of Sens, which recalls in general style certain contemporaneous French ecclesiastical buildings. Foreign influence is also noticeable in the somewhat later Ripon and Chichester Cathedrals, but by the beginning of the 13th century English Gothic had freed itself almost entirely from the trammels of French traditions, and started forward on the path from which it never deviated, combining a consummate mastery of structural principles and an unwearying attention to detail with a unity of expression that makes an English Gothic church or cathedral an ideal reflection of the spirit of the age which witnessed its erection.
The Cathedrals of Wells, Lincoln, and Salisbury, the choir of Ely Cathedral, and the choir, transepts, and part of the cloisters and other details of Westminster Abbey, are typical examples of the Early English phase of Gothic. The first named especially is unrivalled in the symmetry of its general proportions and the richness and appropriateness of its decorations. Its western façade rivals that of Amiens Cathedral in the restrained dignity of its general design, the delicacy of its decorative arcading, and the number and variety of its finely sculptured figures. The central tower, though its upper portion belongs to the Decorated period, harmonises well with the rest of the exterior, whilst the interior is truly a poem in stone, with the long perspective of the nave flanked by graceful arches, springing from clustered piers with capitals of exquisitely carved foliage, noble triforia and clerestories, and a simple arched vaulting of intersecting ribs. The transepts, that are of earlier date than the nave, serve as a kind of introduction to it, and in the choir the transition from Early English to Decorated Gothic can be well studied, the western portion dating from the 12th and the eastern from the 13th century.