There exist, however, throughout the length and breadth of the land, remnants, and, in a few instances, large portions, of buildings of a wholly exceptional character; not assignable to the Norman or any other of the well-known styles which have prevailed in England; but evidently of earlier date. They are clearly not early Norman; for, with the single exception of the round arch, they have nothing in common with the specimens of that style erected in the reign of the Conqueror, but are clearly of a style quite distinct from them. In one instance, we have a tower known to have been erected in the days of the Conqueror, in juxtaposition with the remains of a church in this more ancient style; and in many other instances we have Norman features in connection with these mysterious remains, and to every eye asserting the entire diversity of their art. In some instances, again, as at Monk Wearmouth, Jarrow, Brixworth, and Deerhurst, the remains of this style are on the sites where churches are recorded to have been built in Anglo-Saxon days. These remains correspond in character with buildings represented in Saxon illuminated books. They evince in many instances evidence of having been built in rude imitation of the Roman works of those periods, though in some instances they seem also to suggest the imitation of timber construction. The most obvious rules of induction, then, point to the conclusion that these are the remains of buildings of Anglo-Saxon date.[4] The leading characteristics of these remains (though not all of them to be found in every instance, and probably varying with the date) are as follows:--The frequent decoration of the external walls with pilaster strips, as is so common in early Italian churches, and afterwards in Germany; the bonding of these by alternate vertical and horizontal stones; the imitation of this mode of bonding in quoins where no such strips are used, and in the jambs of doorways and other openings, excepting where Roman brick is of frequent occurrence; the jambs of doorways running _square through_ the thickness of the wall, without recessed orders, and the door itself hung against the inner face of the wall; the frequent use of a kind of pilaster on either side both of doorways and archways, the impost moulding sometimes breaking round, and sometimes stopping against them, and a continuation of the pilaster going round the arch;[5] the occasional use of triangular heads to doors and windows; the use of what are called baluster columns, or short pillars, turned in a lathe, not unlike Elizabethan balusters, bulging in the middle and ornamented with a number of mouldings of trifling relief, such as turners of all ages delight in (these are used for the division of windows, and other purposes); the windows which are usually set high in the wall, are often equally splayed within and without, and the arches sometimes more splayed than the jambs, and slanting upwards like