Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/47

Rh manship is very good, and it will be seen by the sections that some nicety of hand was required in its execution. Three of these quatrefoils were used as ornaments in the upper part of the inside of the north wall of the chancel of Frittenden church, in Kent ; they were built into the wall, but the centre parts were left hollow to the depth of the inner rims, by which means a strong shadow was produced, which rendered them highly effective as architectural decorations. The whole of them were more or less injured, and, as it has been found requisite to rebuild the wall in which they were placed, the most perfect of them has been made complete by an adaptation of the fragments of the others, and is now built into the upper part of the eastern wall of the chancel.

Considerable uncertainty prevails as to the extent to which the making of bricks and tiles was practised in this country during the middle ages, and it has even been questioned whether bricks, properly so called, were made at all subsequently to the time of the Romans, until the introduction of the Perpendicular style of architecture ; it appears, indeed, to be very generally held to be indisputable, that the fragments of thin bricks, which are frequently found built into the walls of medieval structures of earlier date, are all of Roman make. That this opinion is, in the main, correct, as applied to the greater part of the kingdom, may be readily admitted, but the few facts which are here brought forward, seem to shew conclusively that it is not equally true in reference to particular districts.