DOORWAYS.--These are the features on which the most elaborate workmanship was bestowed by the Norman architects, and it is perhaps to be attributed to this that so many of them have been preserved; the Norman doorway having frequently been retained when the church was rebuilt. They are always, except in the Transition period, semicircular, and are very deeply moulded. They are frequently three or four times recessed, and are richly ornamented with the peculiar decorations of the style, the most characteristic of which is the zigzag or chevron moulding. A peculiar head, having a bird's beak, and called a "beak-head," is frequently used, and medallions of the signs of the zodiac are not uncommon. The jambs of the door are ornamented with shafts which are sometimes richly adorned, and have elaborately sculptured capitals. The doorway itself is frequently square-headed, and the tympanum or space between this and the arch is filled with sculpture representing the Trinity, the Saviour, saints, or some symbolical design or monstrous animal, and sometimes merely foliage. There are a few doorways which are trefoil-headed instead of circular. [Illustration: PORTION OF DOORWAY, DURHAM CATHEDRAL.] PORCHES.--The Norman porch is in general not much more than a doorway, the little projection it has from the wall being intended chiefly to give greater depth to the doorway, which is very deeply recessed, and it is in these porches that we find the richest doorways, the arches and shafts being overlaid with the utmost profusion of ornament, which, though sometimes rude, always produces a fine effect, and there is scarcely any architectural feature which has been so universally admired; other styles may be more chaste and more finished, but there is a grandeur about a rich Norman doorway which is peculiarly its own. ARCHES.--The semicircular is the characteristic form of the Norman arch, but there are a few early examples in which the pointed arch was used, supported by massive piers; they are not likely to be mistaken for those of the next style. In the Transition the pointed arch is very frequently used. Sometimes the arch is brought in a little at the impost, when it is called a horse-shoe arch; and sometimes the spring of the arch is above the impost, and is carried down by straight lines. It is then said to be _stilted_.