an. In the recent
restoration the coping has been renewed, the shafts have been given
separate bases once more, and many of the most worn stones have been
replaced by new ones carved in facsimile. Mr. Clifford's beautiful
drawing of the doorway (facing p. 3) is especially valuable as he was
able to take exact measurements of all its parts while the repairers'
scaffolding was still standing. The doors that he pictures have since
been replaced by a more elaborate pair with richly scrolled hinges and
strengthening bands of iron.

This entrance is one of the best known features of the cathedral, so
it will be interesting to quote the words of a few great authorities
concerning it. Fergusson, speaking of the cathedral in his "Illustrated
Handbook of Architecture," says: "Its western doorway, which remains
intact, is a fair specimen of the rich mode of decoration so prevalent
in that age. It must be considered rather as a continental than as an
English example. Had it been executed by native artists we should not
entirely miss the billet moulding which was so favourite a mode of
decoration with all the nations of the north." Kugler, the great art
historian, also thinks it continental in style, and compares it with the
architecture of the south-west of France. We even find it spoken of, on
account of the richness of its ornamentation, as Saracenic in character.
The late Prof. Freeman, in his "History of Architecture," is liberal
with his praise, and probably all Roffensians, at any rate, will agree
with him, when, in speaking of Norman doors with tympana, he says: "the
superb western portal at Rochester Cathedral is by far the finest
example of this kind, if not the finest of all Norman doorways."

The doorway is structurally interesting, as we have therein exemplified
a curious mode of forming a straight head over an aperture. The arches
of course bear all the weight of the super-structure, but the straight
band of masonry on which the figures of the Apostles are carved has to
support both itself and the stonework of the tympanum. The method by
which it is enabled to do this is as follows: the stones, the joints
being vertical, are locked into one another by semicircular ridges
fitting into corresponding indentations. Mr. Smirke, writing on aperture
heads in "Archaeologia," vol. xxvii., said that he thought these
excrescences, or in masons' language, "joggles," insufficient for
security, and suggested that perhaps inside, ou