The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed | Page 7

did it prevail?
A. It was introduced early in the fourteenth century, and continued till the close of the fifteenth century.
Q. How is the Tudor arch described?
A. From four centres; two on a level with the spring, and two at a distance from it, and below. (fig. 9.)
Q. When was the Tudor arch introduced, and why is it so called?
A. It was introduced about the middle of the fifteenth century, or perhaps earlier, but became most prevalent during the reigns of Henry the Seventh and Henry the Eighth, under the Tudor dynasty, from which it derives its name.
[Illustration]
Q. What other kinds of arches are there worthy of notice?
A. Those which are called foiled arches, as the round-headed trefoil (fig. 10), the pointed trefoil (fig. 11), and the square-headed trefoil (fig. 12). The first prevailed in the latter part of the twelfth and early part of the thirteenth century, chiefly as a heading for niches or blank arcades; the second, used for the same purpose, we find to have prevailed in the thirteenth century; and the latter is found in doorways of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. In all these the exterior mouldings follow the same curvatures as the inner mouldings, and are thus distinguishable from arches the heads of which are only foliated within.
[Illustration: DOORWAY. St. Thomas's, Oxford, circa 1250.]

[Illustration: Anglo-Saxon Doorway, Brixworth Church, Northamptonshire. (7th cent.)]
CHAPTER III.
OF THE ANGLO-SAXON STYLE.
Q. During what period of time did this style prevail?
A. From the close of the sixth century, when the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons commenced, to the middle of the eleventh century.
Q. Whence does this style appear to have derived its origin?
A. From the later Roman edifices; for in the most ancient of the Anglo-Saxon remains we find an approximation, more or less, to the Roman mode of building, with arches formed of brickwork.
Q. What is peculiar in the constructive features of Roman masonry?
A. Walls of Roman masonry in this country were chiefly constructed of stone or flint, according to the part of the country in which the one material or other prevailed, embedded in mortar, bonded at certain intervals throughout with regular horizontal courses or layers of large flat Roman bricks or tiles, which, from the inequality of thickness and size, do not appear to have been shaped in any regular mould.
[Illustration: Portion of the Fragment of a Roman Building at Leicester.]
Q. What vestiges of Roman masonry are now existing in Britain?
A. A fragment, apparently that of a Roman temple or basilica, near the church of St. Nicholas at Leicester, which contains horizontal courses of brick at intervals, and arches constructed of brickwork; the curious portion of a wall of similar construction, with remains of brick arches on the one side, which indicate it to have formed part of a building, and not a mere wall as it now appears, at Wroxeter, Salop; and the polygonal tower at Dover Castle, which, notwithstanding an exterior casing of flint, and other alterations effected in the fifteenth century, still retains many visible features of its original construction of tufa bonded with bricks at intervals. Roman masonry, of the mixed description of brick and stone, regularly disposed, is found in walls at York, Lincoln, Silchester, and elsewhere; and sometimes we meet with bricks or stone arranged herring-bone fashion, as in the vestiges of a Roman building at Castor, Northamptonshire, and the walls of a Roman villa discovered at Littleton, Somersetshire.
Q. Have we any remains of the ancient British churches erected in this country in the third, fourth, or fifth centuries?
A. None such have yet been discovered or noticed; for the ruinous structure at Perranzabuloe in Cornwall, which some assert to have been an ancient British church, is probably not of earlier date than the twelfth century; and the church of St. Martin at Canterbury, built in the time of the Romans, which Augustine found on his arrival still used for the worship of God, was rebuilt in the thirteenth century, but, to all appearance, with the same materials of which the original church was constructed.
Q. Do any of our churches bear a resemblance to Roman buildings?
A. The church now in ruins within the precincts of the Castle of Dover presents features of early work approximating Roman, as a portal and window-arches formed of brickwork, which seem to have been copied from those in the Roman tower near adjoining; the walls also have much of Roman brick worked up into them, but have no such regular horizontal layers as Roman masonry displays. The most ancient portions of this church are attributed to belong to the middle of the seventh century. The church of Brixworth, Northamptonshire, is perhaps the most complete specimen we have existing of an early Anglo-Saxon church: it has had side aisles separated from the nave by semicircular arches constructed of Roman bricks,