The church architecture of the Norman times has plenty of examples in Lancashire. It is well known also that many modern churches occupy old Norman and even Saxon sites, though nothing of the original structure has been preserved. The remains in question usually consist, as elsewhere, of the massive pillars always employed by the Norman architects for the nave, or of the ornamented arch which it was their custom to place at the entrance of the choir. Examples of Norman pillars exist at Colne, Lancaster, Hawkshead, Cartmel, Whalley, and Rochdale; the last-named, with the arches above, bringing to mind the choir of Canterbury Cathedral; at Clitheroe we find a chancel-arch; and at the cheerful and pretty village of Melling, eleven miles north-west of Lancaster, a Norman doorway, equalled perhaps in merit by another at Bispham, near Blackpool. Chorley parish church also declares itself of Norman origin, and at Blackburn are preserved various sculptured stones, plainly from Norman tools, and which belonged to the church now gone, as rebuilt or restored in the De Lacy times. The most ancient ecclesiastical building in Lancashire is Stede, or Styd, Chapel, a mile and a half north of the site of Ribchester. The period of the erection would appear to be that of Stephen, thus corresponding with the foundation of Furness Abbey. The windows are narrow lancet; the doors, though rather pointed, are enriched with Norman ornaments; the floor is strewed with ancient gravestones. In this quiet little place divine service is still, or was recently, held once a month. Whalley Church, as we have it to-day--a building commemorative in site of the introduction of the Christian faith into this part of England--dates apparently, in its oldest portion--the pillars in the north aisle--from the twelfth century. The choir is a little later, probably of about 1235, from which time forwards it is evident that building was continued for quite 200 years, so that Whalley, like York Minster, is an epitome of architectural progress. The sedilia and piscina recall times antecedent to the Reformation. Every portion of the church is crowded with antiquities, many of them heraldic; very specially inviting among them are the stalls in the chancel, eighteen in number, transferred hither from the conventual church at the time of the spoliation. The luxuriant carving of the abbot's stall is in itself enough to repay an artist's journey. At the head of one of the compartments of the east window we have the Lancastrian rose; the flower of course tinctured gules, and almost the only representation of it in the county: "Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer, But dare maintain the party of the truth, Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me." I _Henry VI._, ii. 4.