the unusual feature of a
gabled tower with a spire, and that of Worth, both in Sussex, the latter
with rudimentary transepts and a semicircular apse, with which may be
mentioned S. Lawrence at Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts, of somewhat uncertain
but probably later date than any of these, for it has a square Eastern
end and decorative arcading on the upper portion of the walls, prophetic
of coming changes.

Certain portions of St. Martin's Church, Canterbury, notably a doorway
in the chancel and parts of the foundations, are supposed to have
belonged to a Saxon church of earlier date than the crypts of Hexham and
Ripon already referred to, and which was preceded by an even more
ancient building, one of the very first places of Christian worship
erected in England.

The so-called Pyx House in Westminster Abbey, a low narrow
solemn-looking vaulted room with a row of massive pillars in the centre,
and a single archway in the south transept, are all that are left of the
noble sanctuary built under the direction of the last of the Saxon
kings, but these relics, with a few conventual buildings, suffice to
connect with Anglo-Saxon times a church that is perhaps more intimately
associated than any other with the history of England from the close of
the 11th to the middle of the 16th century, it having been added to
under every successive occupant of the throne.

The Anglo-Norman style, that succeeded the Saxon, prevailed in Great
Britain from the conquest to the last decade of the 12th century,
becoming at that time either merged in or superseded by the earliest
phase of the Gothic.

Always most enthusiastic builders, the Normans found in the land of
their adoption fuller scope for their energies than in their own, and
before they became absorbed in the race they had conquered, they left
their impress throughout the length and breadth of their new domain,
monasteries, cathedrals, and parish churches, castles, and dwelling
houses rising up in every direction, all stamped with a most distinctive
character, the result of the welding into one of Anglo-Saxon and Norman
traditions, and the modification of a foreign style by local conditions
of material and environment. In many cases somewhat crude and heavy,
Norman work has yet always an imposing dignity, and is, as a general
rule, admirably suited to the site it occupies and the purpose for which
it is intended.

[Illustration: Plan of Norman Church]

[Illustration: Norman Capital