of Anglo-Saxon construction, of which there are certainly some apparent tokens, or only a Norman structure, may be a matter of investigation and opinion; it contains round-headed doorways and windows constructed of Roman brick, and the same material mixed with stone worked up irregularly in the walls, but this building has undergone many vicissitudes.
The church of St. Michael at St. Alban's, assumed to be the one built by Ulsinus, abbot of St. Alban's, in the tenth century, and of which the nave of the original structure, with the single soffited semicircular-headed arches springing from square massive piers, still remains, is in all probability constructed of mixed masonry of brick and stone, from the ruins of the ancient city, within the site of which it stands. Independent of one object of attraction which it contains,—in a monument of no mean sculpture, placed by a servant to the memory of his master, that master the possessor of a mind of no ordinary mould,—the interest felt in entering this church would not be diminished if the plaster was removed from the arches and piers of the nave, and the Anglo-Saxon masonry of brick and stone, if such it be, exposed to view.
Although in general the Normans do not appear to have been desirous, like the Saxons, of making use of old materials for their buildings, they nevertheless did so in cases of necessity: this is apparent in the abbey church of St. Alban's, the Norman portion of which, built by abbot Paul at the close of the eleventh century, is composed of mixed masonry, vast quantities of brick having been used. The materials were collected, as Matthew Paris informs us, by a former abbot from the ruins of the old Roman city, and here they were almost indispensable, inasmuch as the district in which it is situated affords little or no stone fit for building purposes. Such materials must otherwise have been brought from a distance. The exact disposition of the bricks in the ancient part of this edifice is not very apparent, but in all probability it is irregular.
So also in the mins of the abbey church of St. Botolph, at Colchester, an Anglo-Norman edifice seemingly late in the style, vast quantities of Roman brick, brought from pre-existing edifices, are worked up, but, as regards the mere wall-masonry, irregularly, whilst as regards an attempt at ornament, the intersecting arcade in the west front, though formed of Roman material, is clearly in plan and disposition late Norman.
