The style of design used during this great period owes much of its interest to the now obsolete custom of directly employing the craftsman and his men, instead of the present-day habit of giving the work to a contractor. It is easy to trace how those bands of carvers traveled about from church to church. In one district the designer would employ a particular form and arrangement of vine leaf, while in another adjoining quite a different style repeatedly appears. The general scheme was of course planned by one mastermind, but the carrying out of each section, each part, each detail, was left to the individual workman. Hence that variety of treatment, that endless diversity, which gives a charm and interest to Gothic art, unknown in more symmetrical epochs. The Gothic craftsman appreciated the cardinal fact that in design beautiful detail does not necessarily ensure a beautiful composition, and subordinated the individual part to the general effect. He also often carved in situ, a practice seldom if ever followed in the present day. Here and there one comes across the work of long years ago still unfinished. A half-completed bench-end, a fragment of screen left plain, clearly show that sometimes at least the church was the workshop.