ornamental details.

Q. What is observable with respect to Norman masonry?

A. In general the walls are faced on each side with a thin shell of ashlar
or cut stone, whilst the intervening space, which is sometimes
considerable, is filled with grouted rubble. Masses of this grout-work
masonry, from which the facing of cut stone has been removed, we often
find amongst ruined edifices of early date.

Q. Were there any buttresses used at this period?

[Illustration: Norman Buttress, Chancel of St. Mary's, Leicester.]

A. Yes; but the walls being enormously thick, and requiring little
additional support, those in use are like pilasters, with a broad face
projecting very little from the building; and they seem to have been
derived from the pilaster strips of stonework in Anglo-Saxon masonry. They
are generally of a single stage only, but sometimes of more, and are not
carried up higher than the cornice, under which they often but not always
finish with a slope. They appear as if intended rather to relieve the
plain external surface of the wall than to strengthen it. Norman portals
not unfrequently occur, formed in the thickness of a broad but shallow
pilaster buttress, as at Iffley Church, Oxfordshire, and at Stoneleigh and
Hampton-in-Arden Churches, Warwickshire, and elsewhere. This kind of
buttress was also used in the next, or Semi-Norman style.

Q. Were there any towers?

A. Yes; they were generally very low and massive; and the exterior,
especially of the upper story, was often decorated with arcades of blank
semicircular and intersecting arches; the parapet consisted of a plain
projecting blocking-course, supported by the corbel table.

Q. Do pinnacles appear to have been known to the Normans?

A. Although some are of opinion that the pinnacle was not introduced till
after the adoption of the pointed style, many Norman buildings have
pinnacles of a conical shape, which are apparently part of the original
design.

Q. What distinction occurs in the construction of the small country
churches of this style, and the larger buildings of conventual foundation?

A. Small Norman churches consisted of a single story only; cathedral and
conventual churches were carried up to a great height, and were frequently
divided into three tiers, the lowest of which consisted of single arches,
separating the nave from the aisles: above each of these arches in the
second tier were two smaller arches constructed beneath a larger;
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