rty-five_) may find a parallel in
other Norman churches; or, if an exception is to be made to so sweeping
an assertion, it can only be in favor of the second and largest moulding
in the archivolt of the portal, which is very peculiar. The two lateral
pointed windows are obviously an introduction of a subsequent period;
and a doubt may likewise perhaps be entertained with regard to the
buttresses. This front is small indeed, but elegant: it is more richly
ornamented than that of the chapel in the castle at Caen;[81] and,
though less so than that of the abbey church of St. Georges de
Bocherville, yet can it scarcely be said to be inferior in beauty. A
recent tourist[82] has remarked, with much apparent probability, that
the churches of St. Georges and of Lery may, from the general conformity
in the style of both, reasonably be regarded as of nearly the same
aera,--the time of the Norman conquest; and he goes on to add that,
through these, the English antiquary may be enabled to fix the date to a
specimen of ancient architecture in his own country, more splendid than
either,--the church of Castle-Rising,[83] in Norfolk, whose west front
is so much on the same plan, that it can scarcely have been erected at a
very different period.

The church of Lery (_see plate forty-four_) is built in the form of a
cross, having in the centre a short square tower, to which has been
attached, in modern times, a wretched wooden spire. This Mr. Cotman has
very judiciously omitted, as adding nothing to the interest of the
plate, and merely tending to deform what is otherwise seen in nearly the
same state in which it left the hands of the original builders. The
corbel-table, observable immediately under the top of the tower, and in
some parts of the choir and transepts, exhibits the same description of
monsters, as in the church of St. Paul at Rouen, of the Holy Trinity at
Caen, and other Norman religious buildings.--Two peculiarities attending
upon the exterior of the church are, that the east end is flat, and that
the transepts are altogether without buttresses.

[Illustration: Plate 45. CHURCH OF LERY, NEAR PONT-DE-L'ARCHE.
_West Front._]

[Illustration: Plate 46. CHURCH OF LERY, NEAR PONT-DE-L'ARCHE.
_Interior._]

In the interior (_plate forty-six_) it is impossible not to be struck
with the extraordinary simplicity and solidity of the whole. The only
aim of the architect appears to have been to erect an edifice that
should l