Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/47

Rh appears also to be justly fixed to a period antecedent to the Norman conquest. The original inscribed stone is still preserved among the Arundelian marbles at Oxford, which states that the church of Deerhurst was consecrated on the 11th of April, in the fourteenth year of the reign of Edward the Confessor, which would be A.D. 1056, or 1057, according as the regnal year may have been counted from Edward's accession or from his coronation. A new steeple could hardly have been wanted during the Anglo-Norman period; and as the one now standing cannot have been built at a later period, we seem justified in concluding that it was the original Saxon tower.

Fig. 13. represents another of these triangular-arched door-ways from the Cottonian manuscript. It is accompanied with what is intended to represent a dome. Domes occur frequently in the manuscript, and form a connecting link between Anglo-Saxon and Byzantine architecture. The dome represented in our cut appears to be covered in a very singular manner with parallel semicircles, apparently of tiles; the form which occurs more generally in the manuscript has a knob or ball at the summit, from which, as a centre, the rows of tiles radiate. It may be observed also, that in these drawings the roofs are generally covered with tiles which, in form and arrangement, bear a close resemblance to the scales of a fish.

The capitals of columns in this manuscript are also deserving of attention. Several examples have been given in the cuts which illustrate the preceding pages: the following additional varieties are selected from different parts of the volume.

The most simple and common form is that which has been represented in figs. 1, 2, 9, and 13. The capitals more richly