by St. Wilfrid at Hexham, mentioned above, still exists, and also one at
Ripon Cathedral, in which there is a small window called "Wilfrid's
needle." There is a legend about this which states that if a maid goes
through the "needle," she will be married within the year. Repton Church
has a very perfect specimen of Saxon crypt.

The ground plan of Saxon churches differed. Many were cruciform, and
consisted of nave, transepts, and chancel. The east wall of the chancel
was often semicircular or polygonal, sometimes rectangular. The church
of St. Lawrence, at Bradford-on-Avon, mentioned by William of
Malmesbury, is a fine specimen of a Saxon church, and also the little
church at Escombe, Durham, and that of Deerhurst, Gloucestershire,
recently rescued from being used as a farmstead.

After the close of the thousandth year after the birth of Christ a new
impulse was given to church-building. People imagined that with that
year the millennium would arrive and the Second Advent take place. It
would be vain to build beautiful churches, if they were so soon to
perish in the general destruction of the world, as vain as to heap up
treasure by means of trade. Hence people's minds were unsettled, and the
churches left in ruins. But when the millenary had safely passed away,
they began to restore the fallen shrines, and build new churches, and
the late Saxon or early Norman style came into vogue. Canute was a great
church-builder, and Edward the Confessor rebuilt Westminster Abbey after
the new fashion. Then came William the Conqueror with his Norman
builders, and soon nearly every village had its church, which was
constructed, according to William of Malmesbury, _novo aedificandi
genere_.

We will now notice the characteristics of early Norman work, traces of