The walls were usually built of coarse in.stone, rubble, or flint, having AA bonding at the angles oblong quoins set alternately upright and horirontal, so as to forum what is called long-and-short work. Narrow ribs or strips composed of alternately long and short pieces of stone, projecting a few inches from the surface, are carried vertically up the face of the wall, and have been variously supposed to be rude imitations of pilasters or of timber-work. The piers were low and thick. The arches are either triangular, as at lirigstock, or, as is more common, semicircular. Windows are small ; mostly, in fact, mere narrow openings. Sometimes, and the belfry-windows commonly, they consist of two semicircular-headed windows, divided by a thick and variously shaped baluster-shaft. Occasionally these double windows are enclosed within an arch or hood, formed of the pilaster rib-work above described : engravings of all these varieties will be found in Bloxam (eh. iii.), and other works on English Gothic architecture. The chancel arches are commonly small and quite plain, or have at moot a moulded hood rudely worked on the face. Doorways have
either semicircular or triangular arches : the former spring from plain projecting imposts, and are encircled with a hood of long-and-short rib-work which is usually carried down to the ground.
Mouldings are few and plain. In the later examples semi-cylindrical roll-mouldings are not infrequent. In the older churches sculpture is seldom found ; but later, rudely carved anhnals and flowers, knot-work, Greek crosses in relief, and other ornaments, are let into the walls. The imposts from which the arches spring arc commonly mere rude massive blocks left square and plain, but they are sometimes moulded, and are occasionally rudely sculptured, as at Somptiug, Sussex. Plain square string-courses are often met with ; and inscriptions seem to have been not uncommon. The distinctive features of the style are, however, the long-and-abort work of the quoit)', time pilaster rib-work, the triangular arches, and the baluster-shafts of the belfry windows : the other {{particulars are not infrequent in early Norman work.