Here we meet with a rectangular doorway, the top of which is formed of one long stone, on which is some antique carving and a fragment of a runic inscription.[1] Above this is a tympanum filled with diamond-shaped stones of small size. [Footnote 1: See a full account of this stone in "Bygone Lincolnshire,"--Vol. I, William Andrews & Co.] With the rise of the so-called Norman style of architecture the doors of our churches took a handsomer form; and as the churches themselves were now formed on a larger and nobler plan, more than one entrance was often required. The usual door for the people was now commonly placed at the south side, except in churches connected (as were so many of our cathedrals) with monastic foundations. In this latter case the south side was generally occupied by the cloisters and other conventual buildings, and the people's door was therefore placed upon the north side. At this period, too, the church-porch begins its development; for, although porches in a strict sense were at any rate not usual, the door-way deeply sunk in the massive wall and protected by three, four, or even more concentric arches, suggests the more fully developed shelter of the porch. Of doors of this kind any of our older abbey-churches will supply adequate, and often splendid, examples. The great north door of Durham Cathedral, and the smaller, but not less beautiful doors into the cloisters there, are fine instances. The west and north doors of the little cathedral of Llandaff supply examples in another class of building; and even small and obscure parish churches are sometimes dignified with the possession of an entrance full of the massive solemnity of this Norman work. The village church of Heysham, on Morecambe Bay, has a south door well worthy of mention in this connection; and the Lincolnshire church already cited, Crowle, has an interesting doorway of this kind. As art progressed in Christendom, and exhibited its growing force especially in the churches, the entrances thereto shared in the increasing splendour of the whole. The mouldings of the arches and the pillars, the elaboration of capitals and bases, all showed the evidence of devotion guided by taste and skill. And often something more than mere decoration was attempted; the opportunity was seized to add instruction, and figures of saints and angels, or complete scenes from scriptural or ecclesiastical story, filled the expanse of the tympanum or the niches of the columns. About the twelfth century, also, it became customary to divide the main entrance into two by means of a pillar, or a group of pillars; the two-leaved door being thus made symbolical of the two natures of Christ, of Whom, as Durandus tells us, it is itself the emblem, "according to that saying in the Gospel, 'I am the Door!'"