“The characteristic elegance of the general architectural design was carried out in all the details. The mouldings were delicately rounded and alternated with hollows so drawn as to give here delicate and there most forcible effects of light and shade. Thus the dark line produced by marble in a pier was continued by means of a dark shadow in the arch; and without considerable knowledge of the science of moulding, it is impossible to do justice to this part of the English Early Pointed work, which has never been surpassed, if, indeed, it has ever been equalled at any period elsewhere. The groined roofs were still simple in design, but a ridge rib was often added to the necessary transverse and diagonal ribs of the previous period. This gave a certain hardness of line to the vault; it was the first step to the more elaborate and later systems of vaulting, and was soon followed by the introduction of other ribs on the surface of the vaulting cells. Few works are more admirable than some of the towers and spires of this period.”--(G. S. S.) The characteristic of lancet windows applies only to the early part of the style from 1190 to about 1220 or 1230. After that time circles in the head of the windows of two or more lights came in, and the circles became foliated by about 1230, and continued to 1260 or 1270, when the Decorated style began to come into fashion. “The windows in the earlier examples are plain, lancet-shaped and generally narrow; sometimes they are richly moulded within and without, but frequently have nothing but a plain chamfer outside and a wide splay within. In the Early English style we have, in the later examples, tracery in the heads of the windows, but it is almost invariably in the form of circles, either plain or foliated, and is constructed in a different manner from genuine Decorated tracery. “At first the windows have merely openings pierced through the solid masonry of the head, the solid portions thus left gradually becoming smaller and the openings larger, until the solid parts are reduced to nearly the same thickness as the mullions; but they are not moulded, and do not form continuations of the mullions until we arrive at real Decorated tracery. This kind of tracery was called by Professor Willis plate tracery; being in fact, a plate of stone pierced with holes: it is extensively used in early French work. The more usual kind of tracery is called _bar_ tracery, to distinguish it from the earlier kind.”--(J. H. P.)