e buildings in which it was employed an ethereal charm that has
never been surpassed. In the so-called fan-tracery roof, that was the
culmination of this distinctive form of vaulting, the entire surface of
the roof is covered with radiating ribs resembling the sections of an
outspread fan, connected by bands of trefoil or quatrefoil ornament
known as cusping, and, in some cases--notably in that of Henry VII's
chapel at Westminster--with pendant stalactite ornaments drooping from
the point of intersection of the groins. In some Perpendicular
buildings, as in the Churches of S. Stephen and S. Peter's Mancroft at
Norwich, ornate open timber roofs, enriched with beautiful carving, take
the place of those of stone, and in the final or Tudor phase of the
style such roofs, to which the name of hammer beam has been given, and
of which those of Wolsey's Great Hall at Hampton Court and of
Westminster Hall are good examples, were almost as elaborate as the
fan-tracery variety. Characteristic features of secular Tudor buildings
are the extensive use of panelling, the bow or projecting window rising
direct from the ground, the oriel window or window supported by a corbel
of stone often finely carved, battlements with open tracery work and
richly decorated gables, fine specimens of all of which are to be seen
at Hampton Court Palace.

[Illustration: Early English Dog-tooth Ornament]

[Illustration: Early English Arcading]

[Illustration: Early English Doorway, Westminster Abbey]

One of the earliest Gothic structures in England is the choir of
Canterbury Cathedral, designed by the Burgundian Williams of Sens, which
recalls in general style certain contemporaneous French ecclesiastical
buildings. Foreign influence is also noticeable in the somewhat later
Ripon and Chichester Cathedrals, but by the beginning of the 13th
century English Gothic had freed itself almost entirely from the
trammels of French traditions, and started forward on the path from
which it never deviated, combining a consummate mastery of structural
principles and an unwearying attention to detail with a unity of
expression that makes an English Gothic church or cathedral an ideal
reflection of the spirit of the age which witnessed its erection.

[Illustration: Plan of Salisbury Cathedral]

The Cathedrals of Wells, Lincoln, and Salisbury, the choir of Ely
Cathedral, and the choir, transepts, and part of the cloisters and
other details of Westminster Abbey, are