Architectural character

British Isles
a. Roman period
Example: mosaic flooring, Pottery
• Sculpture indicates the cave which the romans bestowed on dwellings houses
and public buildings.
• Characteristic of roman architecture were so virile that they inevitably
influenced subsequent Anglo-Saxon and Romanesque architecture in Britain.

Basilica plan (picture)

It had western apse, for the virtual at this time required that the celebrant face east
from beyond the altar.

b. ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD
• dependent upon the use of timber

Earls barton: tower

• Pilaster strips derived from ‘’liesenen’’ of the carolingan Rhineland and blind
arcading.

Deerhurst: glo’stershire: window (PICTURE)

Earls Barton tower window

 St. Mary the young: er: York: tower window

Window: worth oh. Sussex

• Triangular- headed openings

Example: deerhurst: glo’stershire window

• Turned baluster and mid-wall shafts

Example: earls barton tower window

Olatory of gallerus, near dingle in Kerry is a monastic cell of the 6th or 7th century,

• rectangular in plan in the form of a corbel vault

• smooth worked internally
• with a pointed extrados.

two main imported characteristics

• ‘’claustral’’ plan of which the
architype was that of St. Gallen in
Switzerland
• the Basilican aisle hall for the body of
the church, which has been
anticipated in England only in the
work of St. Wilfrid. Aisled naves were
not common
lesser
churches but they did occasionally occur in example
such as those wings. Buckinghamshire.

• Helm roof – a rood having four faces, each of

which is steeply pitched so that they form a spire, the
four ridges rise to the point of the spire from base of
four gables.
Example: sompting tower

Anglo-Saxon masonry building

• includes the decorative devices of Carolingian Germany probably based on

timber forms
• inherited from roman antiquity (pilaster strips, triangular arcading and the
ubiquitous monolithic arch with impost blocks)
• occasionally is associated with ashlar facings and either in and out bands or
‘’long and short works’’ in quoins.

Manor houses
• the most important house in a country or village neighborhood.
England

• the earliest types of dwelling were the aisled hall, known well before roman
times.
Anglo Saxon times
• could be on the one hand a palace or mansion or on the other a husbandman’s
steading, accommodating corn and fodder in the ‘nave’ oxen and horses in the
aisles and the living quarters in the end opposite the entrance.
Manor
• was a Norman feudal institution serving for local rural governance, and carrying
rights over an extent of land and its tenants.
• Though the manor house was non-military in purpose, it for long needed
defenses against forays. Disturbance and robbers, and thus was often moated
and lightly protected.

NORMAN PERIOD
-some examples of infrastructures as remain are mostly in the south-east.
Majority, stone-built, the domestic accommodation is raised on a first floor, over an
‘’undercroft’’ or storage ‘’cellar’’

Undercroft- a vaulted basement of a church or secret

 Cellar- a storey having hall or more of its clear height below grade

medieval manor house St. marys guild Lincoln (PICTURE)

medieval manor house booth by panel (PICTURE)

solar- aa room or apartment on an upper floor, as in an early English dwelling

house.

Roofs
• in general, were of the ‘trussed rafter’’ typical in the south-east
• lacking a ridge-piece, in the north-west, there normally were principals spaced
down the length of the building, carrying purlins and a heavy ridge.

Ground plan: Charney basset: berks

The solar
The chapel

Scandinavia
• Romanesque characteristic did not appear in the architecture of Scandinavia
• The traditions of ship-building and of timber-built pagan temples supported the
development of a distinctive native architecture of which there is ample early
evidence.

highly developed form of stave church

• an inner timber colonnade which contributes to a basilican section with a (blind)
clear-storey and the steep scissors—trussed roof.
• In the new church, hallingdai, the structural design depend upon a single central
timber column rising to the roof ridge, with horizontal supports extending to the
upper sills of the outer walls.
Difference between internal decorative simplicity and extraordinary vigour of eternal
carved decoration particularly of the west font and entrance doorway, is very marked

Medieval dwellings
• shows continuous tradition of timber building, particularly in Norway.
 • customary technique was a form of ‘’ lafting’’ making use of logs lapped at their
ends.
• In dome two-storey versions, the upper storey and occasionally the outer walls
and ground level, were constructed in palisade fashion very much in the form of
a cell of a stave church.
• Swedish version of this combined structure, which was common throughout
south Scandinavia is known as ‘’ramioftstuga’’.

Lapped- a joint formed by placing one piece partly over another and uniting the
overlapped portions.

Church at signatuna hav oxial towers and eastern apses with either constinous or
crossing vaults.
s. peter sigtuna: plan (PICTURE)

OSTERLAR CHURCH, BORNHOLM ISLAND DENMARK

• Series of round churches represents an incident in Danish progress towards a
mature Romanesque architecture.
• Have central vaults piers, apsidal projections, and bold plan buttresses.

Cathedral churches in Scandinavia

• incorporating the effects of Norman and German development in masonry
techniques and structural design aimed at fully-vaulted composition.

Examples
1. Religious buildings
The stave churches
Represents a most distinctive indigenous architectural phenomenon of the early
Middle Ages in Scandinavia.

Stave church- a Scandinavian wooden church with vertical planks forming walls.

Borgund church: plan (PICTURE)

ARCHITECTURAL ELEMETS:
• Have an internal timber colonnade and basilican section.
• The chance has an eastern ape
 • Upper gables are embellished with carved dragons’ head
• Internal decoration is limited to carved heads as capitals to the main columns an
foliated carving of the bracing timbers.
Lund cathedral Sweden: (PICTURE)
Lund cathedral doorway detail. (PICTURE)

2. SECULAR BUILDINGS
• generally conformed to the strong tradition of timber construction, and little
original work survives
• Stone built dwellings followed the continental custom, and must have had much
in common with the Norman manor house in England.

example :
at Tynnelso.
• The lower storey is a cross-vaulted undercroft provavly used for storage and
occasional accommodation of livestock, with a hall and chamber at first- floor
level.

House plan: tynnelso (PICTURE)