1902 Norman Architecture 145 



generally stiff to exactness, and usually feeble in conveying 

 any impression of power and grandeur. Take, for example, 

 the doorway of Adel church, Leeds. To begin with, the 

 stones are of unequal breadth, and so are the ornamental 

 points carved upon them. One cannot help noticing how 

 rude and irregular is the execution, and yet how grand and 

 striking as a whole is the doorway ! Here the Norman 

 workman did not trouble himself as to mathematical exact- 

 ness of angles or projections, but simply did his work as 

 stone by stone came to hand. When finished he regarded 

 his work as a whole, and went away satisfied that from this 

 point of view it was imposing. Grace and beauty, fancy 

 and delicacy, may safely be reserved for the later Norman 

 period, such as may be seen in the Norman ornaments at 

 Durham Cathedral. 



In combination with irregularity and rudeness of work- 

 manship, the Normans used enormously massive walls for 

 their buildings. Perhaps this massiveness was to com- 

 pensate for shallowness of foundation, in the hope that the 

 effect of such great weight would be a firm settlement at the 

 base. If this were so, the downward weight would and did 

 make firm settlement at the base ; but a collateral effect was 

 that the walls were caused to crack and gape, and in some 

 cases to collapse entirely.^ However, one cannot but ad- 

 mire the Norman mason's skill in utilising the massiveness 

 of walls at the doorways and at the chancel arches in re- 

 ceding concentric rings of arch decorations. The effect of 

 this is magnificent, inasmuch as the builders who came 

 after, if they retained nothing else of the Norman work, 

 generally retained the doorways, and that, too, in many 

 cases even when they had to remove the whole wall to a 



^ The tower of Winchester Cathedral fell early in the twelfth century. William 

 of Malmesbury tells us that " a few countrymen conveyed the body of the king, 

 placed on the cart, to the Cathedral of Winchester, the blood dripping from it all 

 the way ; here it was committed to the ground within the tower, attended by 

 many of the nobility, but lamented by few ; the next year the tower fell, though I 

 forbear to mention the many different opinions on this subject, lest I should seem 

 to assent too readily to unsupported trifles, more especially that the building may 

 have fallen through imperfect construction." The tower of Worcester Cathedral 

 fell in 1 175, the tower of Ely Cathedral in 1322, that of Chichester in 1861. The 

 tower of Hereford Cathedral showed signs of weakness in 1S41, and the lower 

 part was then practically rebuilt. 



