Norman Architecture in Cornwall. By K H. Sodding. (Ward and
Co. 7s. 6d. net.)—This is an excellent book, well written, being neither too technical nor too popular. By its aid we can admire the energy of those marvellous Norman builders who in so short a time filled England even to its furthest corners with beautiful architecture. Nowhere, perhaps, does this strike us so powerfully as on the IA rard Peninsula. In this remote place, in the folds of the great gale-swept moor, lie little churches rudely built of great blocks of green serpentine. But the builders always left some trace of their characteristic style. Even in the little church at Landewednack, the most southerly pariah church in England, where the last sermon in the Cornish language is said to have been preached, is to be found a doorway which makes ita builders the kin of men who raised the arches of Durham and Tewkesbury. The Nerman mason cut his columns in this instance from the local stone—serpentine—and beautiful is the effect of the almost porphyry-coloured shafts supporting the green capitals. They still stand sharp and clear of edge after seven hundred years.
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