Two vertical slabs act as posts that support a rectangular lintel above, which extends beyond the edges of the posts.
Orderly arrangements of columns, pilasters and lintels, as well as the use of semicircular arches, hemispherical domes, niches and aedicules replaced the more complex proportional systems and irregular profiles of medieval buildings.
This special form, which effectively replaces the lintel, is also found in the region of Languedoc-Roussillon, e.g. at the dolmen of Banelle, which lies near Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort in the southern French department of Gard.
The barrier that separates the sanctuary from the nave, including the columns that pertain to it and the lintel that is above them; the seats that are within, and the steps that are in front of them, and the holy tables themselves — all of these are of silver suffused with gold, of precious stones and costly pearls.
Then, in further questioning Basil about the work, Stubbs finds out maybe he was not called in for nought after all; while making a doorway leading into the kitchen, which was on a load-bearing wall, O'Reilly had used a wooden lintel for the support frame rather than a concrete one or Rolled Steel Joist.