The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church

while, on the other hand, the parish church continued to be planned by local men, open to receive the improvements which more skilled foreign masons had introduced. Consequently, while loca

The Norman western tower either contained no western doorway at all, or provided merely an entrance, which was used only on special occasions. At Caistor the ground floor was probably the main porch of the aisleless church; and there are exceptional instances, as at Finchingfield in Essex, where, in fairly advanced Norman work, the same arrangement was clearly contemplated. On the other hand, at Laceby, between Caistor and Grimsby, a south doorway, coeval with the western tower, has always been the main entrance to the church. Similarly, at Hooton Pagnell, and at Blatherwycke in Northamptonshire, south doorways, of the same age as the tower, form the chief entrance. These last three are early Norman examples; but we may go back even

eless plan:

g at the angles of naves to which aisles have subsequently been added. Evidences, on the other hand, of the westward lengthening of a Saxon nave in the Norman period appear to be rare. At North Witham in south Lincolnshire, the south and (blocked) north doorways are Norman work, in the usual position near the west end of the nave. East of them, however, in the centre of the nave walls, there are distinct traces of the inner openings of a north and south doorway, which may belong to the late Saxon period. Tha

arly twelfth century example at Moor Monkton, in the Ainsty of York; and the chancel of the middle of the twelfth century at Earl's Barton, Northants, is of considerable depth, and was of ample size for all later purposes. At Earl's Barton the eastern portion was the chancel proper; while the western portion supplied that space for a quire which was not provided in less elongated plans. In by far the larger number of cases, the rectangular chancel had a wooden roof. There is, however, a fair number of churches in which

en the side walls were set back in a line with those of the nave. In St Mary's in the Castle at Leicester, the long and very narrow nave was, as may still be clearly seen, continued eastward without a break into the long and narrow quire and chancel. Here the eastern half was used, no doubt, by the college of dean and can

onasteries, we should expect to find it a common feature; for in those buildings the apsidal plan prevailed. But, in the hands of local masons, its sparing employment is easily explained. To build an apse needs skill, not only in planning, but in stone-cutting. The question of vaulting the apse increases the difficulty and the expense. These difficulties would not trouble masons who had worked at the building of Durham or Ely or Winchester; nor would expense trouble the monasteries, which, according to the popular idea, were so ready to lavish money on the fabrics of parish churches. Many apsidal chancels have disappeared, no doubt; but, if we take the bulk of those which remain into account, we shall find that they have a habit of occurring in small groups, as in Berkshire, where three occur together within a single old rural deanery, and that the large majority of the churches in which they are found were not monastic property. A few belonged to preceptories of Knights Templars in their neighbourhood; and perhaps we may see in their apses a reference to the circular form of the

in, Yorkshir

ewhaven in Sussex, where there is a small apse. Here the plan is virtually that of some small parish churches in Normandy, such as Yainville, near Jumièges. The majority of such plans in England, however, end in a rectangular chancel. Precedent for the plan is, as we have seen, to be found in Saxon churches. At St Pancras, Canterbury, we have noticed the westward prolongation of the apse: at Brixworth a definite presbytery or quire space was planned, on a large scale, between apse and nave. In later Saxon churches, where the chancel was rectangular, a tower, with or without transeptal chapels, was sometimes built between nave and chancel; and here, although external

(1) tower between nave and chancel; (2) tower

s the central point of the whole. But, at Acton Burnell, there is no central tower or space: the body of the church consists of a long aisleless nave and an aisleless chancel beyond; and the transeptal chapels are simply stuck on, as it were, to the eastern part of either wall of the nave. This is at once noticeable in elevation, when the chapels are seen to be mere excrescences, with roofs lower than the nave. Moreover, where there is a true central crossing, with a tower above, such as we find in almost all our cathedrals, a transept on either side is necessary for the support of the tower. The transepts need not be wholly symmetrical, although in most cases they are; but they must be there. On the other hand, where there is no central tower, and the crossing is merely apparent, symmetry of treatment is quite unnecessary. While there are two transeptal chapels of similar size at Acton Burnell, or at Achurch in Northamptonshire, there are far more instances in which a less regular treatment was adopted. Thus, at Childs Wickham in Gloucestershire, and Montacute in Somerse

shire: tower arches, chance

true cruciform plan, the four arms are all of equal width. At Bampton-in-the-Bush, Oxon, where the plan of the church was greatly altered in the thirteenth century by the addition of aisles, the Norman plan was very similar to that of North Newbald. The cruciform plan of Melbourne, Derbyshire, with its aisled nave, was probably inspired more directly by continental examples. The aisleless chancel was vaulted, and ended in an apse, which was squared in later times by the addition of a rectangular piece east of its springing points. Out of the east walls of the short transepts opened wide apses, the walls of which joined the western ends of the walls of the chancel. Thus, externally, the plan of the eastern part of the church was closely allied to the plan with three apses whic

t is very low. The low tower arches at Burford, Oxon, and the narrow arches at St Giles, Northampton, are examples of the way in which the supports of the Norman central tower interfered with the internal convenience of churches. It was not until much later that this difficulty was solved, and then only in one or two cases, when the cruciform plan had become exceptional. The plans of Bampton, Burford, and Witney, show how the builders of west Oxfordshire experimented in cruciform planning. The division between chancel and nave is felt much less at Witney than in the other two churches; for the great thirteenth century tower and spire, resting upon massive piers joined by pointed arches, throw a considerable portion of their weight upon nave and transept arcades, whose exceptional massiveness gives unity to the whole desi

e builders worked imaginatively, imitating in the round naves of a few churches the rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre. Other instances of devout imitation might be found, if we looked for them. But the imitation of a concrete model is a different thing from translating abstract mysteries into the plan and elevation of a building. And, although the ground plan with nave, transepts, and chancel, certainly forms a cross; and, although, as time went on, the resemblance to the chief symbol of the Christian faith was no doubt recognised