Preface, is introduced a View of the Church of Querqueville, near
Cherbourg, a building of unquestionable antiquity, and here
figured, as the only instance in Normandy, or possibly in
existence, of a church whose transepts, as well as the chancel,
terminate in a semi-circular form. In these parts, the walls are
formed of herring-bone masonry, which is not the case with the
tower or nave, which are more modern. The tower is, however,
probably of the Norman aera; and the peculiar masonry which
distinguishes the chancel, is still observable for a few feet
above its junction with the nave. Its ornaments may be compared
with those of St. Peter's church, at Barton-upon-Humber, and
Earl's-Barton church, Northamptonshire, both of them figured in
the _fifth_ volume of _Britton's Architectural Antiquities_, and
both evidently Norman. The church of Querqueville has no
buttresses. Its length, from east to west, is forty-eight feet and
six inches; from north to south, forty-three feet and four inches;
the width of the nave is nine feet and nine inches.

PLATES LV. AND LVI.

CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS, AT CAEN.

[Illustration: Plate 55. CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS, AT CAEN.
_West end._]

The Abbe De la Rue, in his _Historical Essays upon Caen_, contents
himself with remarking, with regard to the church of St. Nicholas, that
it is the only specimen of real Norman architecture now left entire in
the town; for that the abbatial church of the Holy Trinity, a building
of the same period and style, has been so disguised by the alterations
made with the view of adapting it to its present purpose, that,
considered as a whole, it is no longer to be recognized as a type of the
religious edifices of the Normans. Such being the case, it is the more
to be lamented that the church here figured, should not only have been
degraded from its original application, but should have been
appropriated to an object eminently liable to expose it to injury. It is
now used as a stable for cavalry; but, fortunately, it has still been
suffered to remain entire; and hopes are entertained, that it may yet be
one day again employed as a place of worship.

The exterior of the building has not altogether escaped uninjured or
unaltered. In the western front, (see _plate fifty-five_,) both the
lateral towers have lost their original terminations, and have been
reduced to a level with the roof of the nave. One of them still re