The subject of the architecture of pre-Norman England,--that is to say, of England (exclusive of Wales and the counties occupied by the Britons), between the arrival of Augustine in 596, and that of William of Normandy in 1066,--a period exceeding by ten years the interval between the reigns of Edward III. and Queen Victoria,--has been held by some to be involved in such utter obscurity as to leave it uncertain whether any such architecture existed, or, at least, whether we have any means of ascertaining what it was; and yet no period of history is, perhaps, more replete with accounts of the foundation of cathedrals, monasteries, and churches. The cause of this is clear. The churches of this period were, no doubt, frequently of timber; but, of whatever material, were subjected,--first to the destructive effects of the repeated devastations of the Danes, and subsequently to the greater architectural ambition of the Normans which led to a perfect mania for reconstruction. The consequence is, that we have no cathedral or great abbey or church remaining of this period, and have to content ourselves with such evidences of their style as may be gleaned from among ordinary parish churches for the most part in rural districts, and consequently of the humbler class. The historical notices of the erection of churches during the Anglo-Saxon period are more frequent than descriptive. On the arrival of Augustine, he found the Church of St. Martin, Canterbury, already used by the Christian Queen Bertha. This was, no doubt, a Romano-British structure. He found also a second, but in ruins; and this he made the nucleus of his metropolitan cathedral. He constructed also a third, afterwards called by his own name. We know, too, that in his day were also founded the cathedrals of Rochester and London; and there is no reason to doubt that all of these were of stone. I am not aware that we hear anything more, in Anglo-Saxon days, of St. Martin’s, or that we have any description of St. Augustine’s, but we have a strong light thrown on the subsequent history of the cathedral up to the Norman Conquest in the writings of one Eadmer, a singer at the cathedral, who wrote early in the twelfth century. Recapitulating the account of its having been erected by St. Augustine on the site of a Roman church, he proceeds to say that in the days of Archbishop Odo, in the tenth century, the roof had become so decayed as to require renewal; that Odo took the opportunity of increasing the height of the walls, and that the work occupied three years. He also tells us that a church dedicated to St. John the Baptist had been added by Archbishop Cuthbert in the eighth century near the east end of the Church, for baptisms, etc. He says that the church escaped the destruction threatened by the army of King Sweyn in 1011; but was subsequently burnt down by accident, and remained in ruins until rebuilt by Lanfranc.