The upper portion of these Saxon towers has been destroyed, and replaced by later parapets; so that it is not easy to say in what manner they terminated. But the very remarkable tower of Sompting, in Sussex, offers a valuable solution of the difficulty. In this tower each side terminates in an acutely pointed gable, from which the roof is carried up, and, meeting in a point, forms a sort of short square spire, such as we still see in some of the churches in Germany. All these towers are without staircases, the different storeys being only to be reached by ladders. The circular or newel stair turret seems not to have been introduced till the twelfth century.
Windows.—These are either round-headed or triangular-headed, and are frequently surrounded by a sort of framework of projecting stone. They are usually—but not always—deeply recessed on the outside as well as in the inside, the narrowest part of the window being in the centre of the wall. When the window is of two lights, it is divided by a small baluster, or shaft, set in the middle of the wall; this supports an impost, which is generally one stone reaching through the entire thickness of the wall.
Tower of Earl's Barton Church, Northamptonshire.
Sometimes the heads of both single and double-light windows, instead of being arched, are formed of two straight stones meeting at the point, and forming a triangular head. The single lights are frequently little more than mere openings in the wall, frequently without ornament of any kind, the whole window being cut out of a single stone, as at Caversfield, and the jambs are often
