l8o ARCHITECTURAL STYLES IN FORDINGTON CHURCH. 



sketch), coincides with the pointed arches of the arcade. It is 

 terribly mutilated, and it is impossible to make out the details of 

 its features. You can certainly trace the groove on its rest 

 leading to the pipe or drain for conveying the rinsed water 

 through the wall, and that is about all. 



Also, if there was no apse, its position would be sufficiently 

 near to the altar to answer its purposes comfortably. 



There are the signs remaining of a V-shaped hood or roof 

 having existed, instead of the present lead flat and parapet to the 

 porch. 



The lines of the water-tabling still remain in the main wall 

 both inside and outside of the porch, and the rakes exactly 

 coincide. 



The roof over the south aisle is, possibly, of the semi- 

 Norman period, and consists of shaped wall pieces supported on 

 corbels carrying the ends of inclined principals. There is 

 common sense in this, because if the ends of the beams decay in 

 the wall the wall pieces are still there carrying the weight. The 

 roof over the nave and transept is waggon-headed, or barrel 

 vaulted, in appearance, with more recent plastered work, and the 

 construction consequently is hid. Norman roofs are said to have 

 had king-post trusses, and the Early English are of trussed rafter 

 construction. This roof may approximate to the latter, as the 

 work we have considered is Transition and near to this period. 

 Trussed rafter roofs would lend themselves readily to the 

 waggon-headed shape with firring pieces, lathes, and plaster. 



The present roofs are now covered with no less than four 

 different kinds of covering, viz., lead on the nave roof, slates on 

 the north aisle. One side of the south transept roof has slates, 

 the other stone tiles, and there are small clay tiles on the chancel. 



The south transept also has an appearance under the eastern 

 eaves of having been covered with thatch at one period. 



There were great exertions on the part of church builders in 

 the 1 3th Century, and extraordinary energies were put forth in 

 the erection of religious edifices, or enlarging and beautifying 

 those that existed. 



