As with all things Norton, there are several versions of Long Roadholders and several versions of Short Roadholders - some shorter than others.
The original LongRoadholders, just postwar for models like the ES2, 16H , Inter Manx etc had external springs and very minimal damping arrangements. (There was a prewar version, that had NO hydraulic damping whatsoever). For the Featherbed models in the early 1950s, the forks became shorter (2" shorter) and got internal springs and a slightly more refined damping system. The Commando got a stretched version of the short Roadholders, still with internal springs and damping, and hard-chromed fork tubes.
Manx models had a shorter version of the short Roadholders (sometimes with external helper springs), and some much more sophisticated damping arrangements have been made available, with both compression AND rebound damping. Very firm ride and extremely limited travel, it is a race bike afterall.
hth