Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/186

140 THE HALL OF OAKHAM. SOUS and Oxford. The chancel-arch of Edith Weston in the immediate neighbourhood helps to connect the local character with these distinguishing marks of the transitional style ; a style which may be equally discerned in the interior of the hall, as in the pointed windows without. The stone used for dressing is a fine grained shelly oolite from Chpsham, not so coarse as the Barnack stone, nor so delicate as the Ketton ; harder than the latter, and more readily worked than the former. Witness in proof the exquisitely sculptured heads under the brackets which form responds to the arches at either end and on both sides of the hall. The wall of enclo- sure {cim/idmn) is built of a coarse ferruginous upper member of the oolite, with mortar made without much lime. ELEVATION OF THE HALL, EAST END The hall is divided by three shafts on either side into four bays, like that formerly existing at Barnack ; proportionately as Necham, a writer of the twelfth century, says was the rule ; it is smaller, though earlier, than the hall at Winchester, but in its various sculptures and points of detail infinitely more beautiful ; nothing in fact exceeds the spirit and the graceful- ness of the different heads. Those of Henry II. and his* wife, Margaret of Guienne, opposite the former door of entrance, as placed in the most prominent part, are peculiarly deserving attention. After this it need scarcely be said that the present position of the door is not the original one. When Buck published his view in 1720, it was at the east end, answering