Excerpt:
The broach-spire now came into notice. It was added on to the square tower, and at the early part of this style was low in height, but gradually became taller.
The circular-headed windows of the Normans gave place to the narrow-pointed lancets of the Early English. These admitted little light, and necessitated a greater number of windows, which were grouped into couplets or triplets.
Geometrical.--The window, by the gradual process of piercing the vacant spaces in the window-head, carrying mouldings around the tracery (or ornamental filling-in), and adding cusps (the point where foliations of tracery intersect), gave rise to Geometrical work.
The earliest work of this kind is found in Westminster Abbey.
Decorated.--The towers are made to appear lighter by the parapets being either embattled or pierced with elegant designs, and pinnacles placed on them.
The broach-spires gave place to spires springing at once from the octagon. The buttresses are set....
