period.[33] In certain features he used, moreover, the evidence of the
ancient Saxon church at Brixworth.[34]

Not only from models left in Britain by the Romans, but also through
the frequent visits of our ecclesiastics to Rome, it naturally happened
that the Saxon architecture was imitated from the Roman. Nevertheless,
the Anglo-Saxons appear to have developed a style of their own. Sir
Gilbert Scott in his posthumous Essays characterises this early church
architecture by two features--the square termination of the east end,
and the west end position of the tower. This was quite insular, and not
to be found in Roman patterns. In Professor Willis's plan of the first
cathedral at Canterbury the east and west ends are both apsidal, and the
two towers are placed on the north and south sides of the nave.

The great discovery, a few years ago, of the Saxon chapel at
Bradford-on-Avon, and the successful way in which it was cleared and
detached from other buildings by Canon Jones, has not only given us so
complete an example of Saxon church architecture as we had nothing like
it before, but it has also improved our faculty of recognising Saxon
work in fragmentary relics, and, if I may so speak, of pulling them all
together. A remarkable passage in William of Malmesbury records that
Aldhelm built a little church (_ecclesiola_) in this place; and the
possibility that this may be that very church is not rejected by the
best judges. Aldhelm died in 709.

Of Saxon construction a chief peculiarity is that which is called "longs
and shorts." It occurs in coins of towers, in panelling work, and
sometimes in door jambs.[35] Of the latter, a fine example occurs at
Laughton, near Maltby, not many miles distant from Sheffield. What makes
this latter instance more peculiarly interesting, is the fact that over