ENGLISH ROMANESQUE / NORMAN
c.1066 - c.1160
The Norman Conquest brought with it large-scale building projects, particularly from the 1190’s onward.
This was partly as a means of demonstrating their wealth and power over the land, but also as a means of personal safety.
The Doomsday book of 1086 only listed 20 quarries in England, so whilst the Normans imported stone from well-connected quarries abroad, such as Caen, they also began large scale, permanent quarrying in England.
Characteristics of Romanesque/Norman architecture include well-set ‘heavy’ pillars, barrel vaults and rounded openings and arches. Whereas early Norman architecture had thick mortar lines (gaps in-between the stones), these became thinner as we approach the mid C12th.
The porch and columns in Howell St Oswald can be dated to the Norman period.
They we restored in 1870, although Nikolaus Pevsner, in The Buildings of England: Lincolnshire (1964), suggests they were perhaps "over-restored".
This was partly as a means of demonstrating their wealth and power over the land, but also as a means of personal safety.
The Doomsday book of 1086 only listed 20 quarries in England, so whilst the Normans imported stone from well-connected quarries abroad, such as Caen, they also began large scale, permanent quarrying in England.
Characteristics of Romanesque/Norman architecture include well-set ‘heavy’ pillars, barrel vaults and rounded openings and arches. Whereas early Norman architecture had thick mortar lines (gaps in-between the stones), these became thinner as we approach the mid C12th.
The porch and columns in Howell St Oswald can be dated to the Norman period.
They we restored in 1870, although Nikolaus Pevsner, in The Buildings of England: Lincolnshire (1964), suggests they were perhaps "over-restored".