compound pier, in Romanesque and Gothic architecture, feature of a nave arcade designed for the support of arches and to bring arch and pier into harmony. The forerunner of the Gothic clustered column, it is cross-shaped in section, with shafts placed in the recesses. It occurs widely in France and in England, where it is found in some English parish churches and in monumental form in such Norman (Romanesque) cathedral churches as those of Durham, Winchester, Ely, and Peterborough.