Architecturally considered, the chapel is a building of great interest.[78] A more pure, or more perfect specimen of the Norman æra, is perhaps no where to be found. Without spire or tower, and divided into three parts of unequal length and height, the nave, the choir, and the circular apsis, it resembles one of the meanest of our parish churches in England. In its design, it is externally quite regular, being divided throughout its whole length, into small compartments, by a row of shallow buttresses, which rise from the ground to the eaves of the roof, without any partition into splays. Those on the south side, (see _plate forty-two_) are all, except the most eastern, still in their primeval state; but a buttress of a subsequent, though not very recent, date, has been built up against almost every one of the original buttresses on the north side, by way of support to the edifice. Each division contains a single narrow circular-headed window; beneath which is a plain moulding, continued uninterruptedly over the buttresses as well as the wall. Another plain moulding runs nearly on a level with the tops of the windows, and takes the same circular form; but it is confined to the spaces between the buttresses. There are no others.--The entrance was by circular-headed doors, at the west end and south side, both of them very plain; but particularly the latter. The few ornaments of the western are as perfect and as sharp, as if the whole were the work of yesterday. This part of the church has, however, been exposed to considerable injury, owing to its having joined the conventual buildings. [Illustration: Plate 43. CHAPEL OF THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JULIEN, NEAR ROUEN. _Interior. Choir and part of the Nave._]