176 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES IN FORDINGTON CHURCH. 



company of Freemasons, the latter stipulates that every man 

 should be provided with a pair of white leather gloves and a 

 white apron, and that a lodge, properly tiled, should be erected at 

 the expense of the parish, in which to hold their meetings. 



A number of the members of the craft undoubtedly were 

 drafted to Fordington, there to undertake the enlargement and 

 alteration of the church. These men, although they had a 

 certain knowledge of their craft, were not workmen of the first 

 water, nor could they be mentioned in the same category as such 

 men as William of Sens and William the Englishman. They 

 seem to have found Fordington a very poor place, with 

 certainly a lack of proper and sufficient materials, as the 

 evidence of the using up of the singular stone to the base of the 

 south-west pillar and the indiscriminate mixture of Ham Hill 

 and Beer stone seems to prove. The form, design, and nature 

 of the stone to the base of the second pier seems to indicate that 

 it had been used elsewhere and brought there. The Norman 

 workmanship generally here is crude, and the carving to the 

 pillar cap lacks the vigour of the best period, and is little better 

 than scratched work. The Normans added the south aisle, 

 porch, and transepts. Whether a chancel, with a square, circular, 

 or apsidal end, was extended it is now impossible to say. The 

 plan of the porch is unusual, in that it tapers inwards slightly 

 and narrows itself next the church. 



I cannot accept the belief of some, viz., that there was a low 

 tower at the crossing. The size seems somewhat out of proportion 

 to the remainder of the church, and the interior would have had 

 to be roughly about 20 feet each way (certainly one way) for it 

 to have fitted in. The present tower is but 12 feet by 13 feet 

 internally. 



The modus operandi of the Norman masons was as follows, 

 according to Micklethwaite's theory (and it is quite patent to an 

 investigator). If, as in this instance, they wanted to add an aisle 

 to an existing church, they did not shore up the roof and pull 

 down the wall to build the new arcade required ; but they drew 

 openings in the standing wall slightly wider and opposite to the 



