On the coast of Normandy, not far from Dieppe, is the Manor House of d’Ango, built circa 1530–1545 by Jehan Ango. Italian craftsmen built the house and outbuildings in a style of masonry similar to what I know as Plantagenet masonry from the vicinity of Angers. Apparently they are unrelated.

What interests me, of course, it the aggressive patterning of each style and how they might have been an influence on William Halsey Wood, designer in 1889 of the second Fennimore County courthouse.

And to think that just a few years ago I was within a mile or so of this amazing example of masonry construction. My friend Richard and I were at Varengeville-sur-Mer to see a country house by Sir Edwin Lutyens and literally had to drive by this on the way.

The round thingy, by the way, is a dovecote — filled with guano for fertilizer.