The Anglo-Saxon tower at Sompting, Sussex, and the Saxon church at Bradford-on-Avon (A.D. 705), are also examples of early work executed in England prior to the Norman Conquest (1066). The work we understand as Norman in England was in existence long before the Conqueror’s time, and it is quite likely that the subsequent English Gothic would have developed just the same if the Normans had not invaded England. The English Romanesque, or Early Norman style, dates, as near as possible, from Edward the Confessor’s time (1041-1065). This king founded the great Abbey of Westminster, of which the Dormitory substructure walls and vaulting still remain, but the rest of the original church has disappeared. On the Continent and in England, just after the year 1000, a great building period set in, as for many years prior to this date a corresponding period of an opposite kind, or a lethargy in the life of the Christian peoples, and consequently an inactivity in all building operations, was manifested, owing to the prophecy that the end of the world would come in the year 1000. When this was found to be a delusion, a building craze spread over Europe, and the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries were the great building ages, when both Christian and Saracenic architecture advanced with leaps and bounds. The Normans in England after the Conquest, no doubt, hastened the advancement of architecture; for the rule seems to have been that wherever they found a small or old church of the Anglo-Saxon type or period, they invariably pulled it down, re-dressed the stones, and built a much larger and better church on the same site, using up the old material when available, besides building many churches on new sites. The Normans were also much better builders than the Saxons, and at this time great numbers of Norman masons were brought over from France. The strongholds, or castles, with their massive keeps, were built at this period by the new Norman barons, in order not only to have stately dwellings for themselves, but to protect their newly-acquired honours and possessions from their Saxon foemen. Remains of many of these strongholds, especially of the keeps, are still to be seen at Hedingham Castle at Rochester; Gundulph’s Tower—the oldest—at Malling, Kent; Newcastle, Guildford, Colchester, Richmond, and Conisborough in Yorkshire, &c. One of the earliest is the great White Tower of London, in which is found the beautiful little Norman Chapel, one of the best and most perfect examples of Norman architecture in England. The Norman keeps, or towers, are uniform in design, having a square plan, with a square projecting turret at each angle, and a flat, thin buttress in the centre of the walls; windows were small, and were round or square-headed. The doorways were round-headed, recessed, and were generally ornamented. [Illustration: Fig. 385.—The Landgrave’s Room at the Wartburg.]