Chapter 9

THE AISLED PARISH CHURCH

I. NAVE, TOWER, AND PORCHES

Sec. 39. The variations of the aisleless plan, which have been indicated, are all of which it is capable. Naturally, after the twelfth century, many aisleless churches were still built, and are common in country districts. In their humblest form we find them in the small churches of highland regions, the masonry of which is so rough that their date is often a matter of doubt. Sometimes they have been rebuilt, with a lengthened chancel, as at West Heslerton, near Scarborough. In many instances, we have aisleless country churches rebuilt in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with western towers. This, uncommon in no part of England, is especially common in Norfolk and Suffolk; and some of these churches, like Ranworth in Norfolk, have much dignity and spaciousness of proportion. In some late Gothic churches the structural division between nave and chancel is left out, and the building has been deliberately planned as a spacious aisleless rectangle, of which the eastern bay is allotted to the chancel. This happens at Temple Balsall in Warwickshire and the chapel of South Skirlaugh in Yorkshire. Aisleless plans with one or two transeptal chapels are to be found all through the middle ages: Acton Burnell represents a thoroughly symmetrical employment of this type. On the other hand, aisleless cruciform plans with central towers are by no means common after the twelfth century. Potterne is a perfect development of this plan in the thirteenth century. There is a complete aisleless cruciform plan at Othery, near Bridgwater, where the tall central tower is quite out of proportion to the humble church above which it rises, and has necessitated substantial outer buttressing. Here probably the church was rebuilt on earlier foundations, transepts being possibly added. In many instances an aisleless cruciform church seems to have been rebuilt on the lines of a complete Norman plan. This was with little doubt the case at Acaster Malbis, near York, where the church is planned with direct relation to the central space, but without a tower; and the foundations of earlier walls can be traced all round the building, at the foot of the walls built in the fourteenth century. The absence of the tower is an anomaly, but is one method of solving the problem of the connexion between nave and chancel in the cruciform plan.

Sec. 40. Thus, if here and there we can detect novelties which make for improvements upon the aisleless plan, the plan itself is subject to no general development upon its own unelastic lines. The real course of development is to be traced in the gradual addition of aisles to the church. Just as the basilica may have come into existence by the addition of aisles to an aisleless building, so the parish church was enlarged by the piercing of its walls for columns and arches, and the incorporation of aisles with the main building. The usefulness of aisles is at once apparent. They afford greater space for the distribution of the congregation. The aisleless church may be inconveniently crowded from wall to wall: on the other hand, where spaces are left between the nave and side walls, the congregation will mass itself in the nave, but the aisles will be left free until the nave is filled, and thus there will be free access through the side doorways for as long a time as possible. Aisles also afford a clear space for processions, and allow them to turn inside the church at a certain point and without difficulty. In addition to this, aisles form a convenient situation for the smaller altars of a church, and, from an early date, were added with this view.

Sec. 41. A parish church usually contained more than one altar, even if served by a single priest. In the small aisleless church of Patricio in Breconshire, in addition to the altar in the chancel, there were two smaller altars, which still remain in place, on either side of the central doorway of the rood screen. Such altars were dedicated in honour of various saints; and mass would be said at them on the festivals of those saints and on other occasions. The various popular devotions which came into being in the middle ages, led to the multiplication of special altars and chapels. In cathedral and abbey churches, where there were many priests, the provision of a number of altars was, from the first, a necessity. To this is due the adoption, from the beginning, of the aisled plan in our larger churches, where it is a direct inheritance from the basilican plan. At Norwich and at Gloucester, for instance, the apse was provided with an encircling aisle, which gave access to small apsidal chapels. The transepts also had eastern chapels ending in apses. At Durham each transept had an eastern aisle, containing a row of such chapels; and the abnormal development of the transepts in thirteenth century churches, as at York, Lincoln, and Salisbury, and the occasional provision of an eastern transept, or of a great transverse eastern arm, like the Nine Altars at Fountains and Durham, was made with a view to the continually growing number of altars and daily masses. In Cistercian abbeys, the churches of which were wholly devoted to the uses of the monastery, the aisles of the nave were divided into chapels by transverse walls. In the secular cathedral of Chichester, where the aisles had to be left free, outer aisles, similarly divided, were made. Great French cathedrals, like Amiens, not only have a complicated series of chapels opening from the aisles of the apse, but have their naves lined with chapels, which were formed by removing the outer walls of the aisles to a level with the outer face of the buttresses. The ordinary parish church had no need of these elaborate arrangements, although in towns and in districts where money was plentiful and its possessors recognised its true source, plans hardly less spacious than those of the cathedral and monastery churches came into being. But it is obvious that, in a church where there were no more than two or three altars, space would be gained by removing them from the body of the church to the end of the aisles. In some twelfth century churches there were probably altars against the wall on either side of the narrow chancel arch; and, in later days, as at Ranworth and Patricio, when the rood screen filled the lower part of a broad arch, altars were placed against the screen. In the first case, the chancel arch might have been widened; in the second case, the sides of the screen would have been freed, by the addition of aisles into which the altars could have been removed.

Sec. 42. The most common plan of the aisled church is formed by an aisled nave with a long aisleless chancel, western tower, and south porch. So common is this that it may be spoken of as the normal plan of the larger English parish church. There must have been, we already have said, a very large number of aisleless churches in England at the time of the Conquest. Where Norman builders reconstructed parish churches, they showed a distinct preference for the aisleless plan. But, in many churches, built about or soon after the beginning of the twelfth century, aisles were planned and executed. The walls of earlier churches were entirely taken down, and new arcades built in their place, not necessarily on the precise line of the old foundations. Aisled twelfth century naves on a magnificent scale may be seen, for example, at Melbourne in Derbyshire, and Sherburn-in-Elmet, between York and Leeds. Both places were important episcopal residences: Melbourne belonged to the bishops of Carlisle; the manor of Sherburn was the head of a barony of the archbishops of York, who, all through the middle ages, did much to promote architecture on their domains. Another twelfth century nave of great magnificence is that of Norham-on-Tweed, which belonged to the cathedral priory of Durham; and, although we must not assume that it was built at the expense of the monastery, it doubtless owes its stately proportions to the influence of the mother house. Less imposing in elevation, but richer in refined detail, are such aisled naves as those of Long Sutton in south Lincolnshire, and Walsoken in west Norfolk, which belong to the later part of the twelfth century. The plans in each case are very regular; and the new arcades were probably built, at any rate in part, on older foundations. These naves reach the extent, unusual in a parish church, of seven bays. The nave of Norham is of five bays. Melbourne has five bays, but the plan of the church was as exceptional at the west as at the east end. Western towers were planned, but not completed, at the end of either aisle: this feature, probably imitated from Southwell minster, was also contemplated at Bakewell in Derbyshire. Between the towers was an extra western bay of the nave, divided into two stories, the lower forming a vaulted return aisle, the upper forming a gallery. There are only four bays at Sherburn, but here the aisles were continued as far as the western face of the tower. The tower is thus engaged within the aisles, and its vaulted ground floor forms, like the western bay at Melbourne, a return to them.

Sec. 43. But, when the question of adding aisles to a church arose, the builders were met by the difficulty that the church was wanted constantly for service. The taking down of the walls and the building of new arcades interfered with this necessary use of the fabric. In our own day a congregation, driven out by builders or restorers, can resort to a school room or mission room. In the middle ages, these alternatives were unknown; and the church was positively indispensable. With this in view, the builders were obliged to add their aisles without touching more of the main fabric than they could help. Usually, then, they took the length of the existing aisleless building for the length of their aisles. They then set out the aisles upon either side of the church, building the outer walls, and dividing them into bays by external buttresses. Then, opposite each buttress, they proceeded to break through the walls of the church. Leaving a piece of the old wall to serve as a footing for each column, they built up the columns in the thickness of the wall, the masonry being gradually removed as each rose in height. The arches were made in the same way, the wall being removed by degrees until the two sides of each arch met at the key-stone. The aisles were then roofed, and, finally, the masses of wall which still remained beneath each arch were broken down, and the nave and aisles thrown into one. The old masonry could be removed through the doorways of the aisles; and sometimes one of the end walls of either aisle was left unbuilt to the last, so that the masons could have free entrance for new, and exit for old, material. The old walls of the nave, above the columns and arches, were left untouched. In this way the upper parts of the walls of several Saxon naves--more, probably, than we have opportunity of discovering--remain to us. The north wall at Geddington in Northamptonshire is the most striking instance. The practice was so common as to be general. In hundreds of country churches the plinths on which the columns of the nave rest are probably pieces of the foundation of the older wall, refaced, or even left in the rough. Instances are nearly as common in which the heads of the new arches have blocked earlier windows; for, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when glass was rare and expensive, and the openings were usually closed by latticed shutters, the windows were set high in the wall. There is a remarkable example of the retention of old work at Seamer, near Scarborough. To this fine twelfth century aisleless church a north aisle was added in the fifteenth century. The builders, possibly wishing to avoid expense, employed the old method, which in those days of prosperity and general rebuilding had fallen into disuse. In order not to interfere with the older windows, they deliberately made their arches very low: the result is that, from the interior of the aisle, one can see that the old wall was almost entirely kept, the new columns being built up on the line of the flat pilaster buttresses, which were left unaltered above the capitals. Sometimes, the connexion between nave and aisles was made by cutting arches at intervals in the wall, without building columns. The north arcade at Billingham in Durham, and the thirteenth century arcades at Tytherington in Gloucestershire consist of arches with large masses of the earlier wall left between them. Such a method was economical, as much less dressed stone was required; and we find it employed at Copford in Essex, where good building stone was hard to get. Nevertheless, it prevented the free circulation of light from the windows of the aisles, and practically shut off the aisles from the church.

Sec. 44. There is one obvious consequence of the setting out of aisles on either side of an existing building which, although an imperfection in itself, contributes greatly to the variety of the parish church plan. The builders cannot see both their aisles at one and the same time: the older church comes in between. In fact, until the nave and aisles are actually joined, at the close of the work, by the breaking down of the walls beneath the arches, there can be no opportunity of appreciating the full effect of the work. There is a famous instance at Beverley minster of the mistakes to which the presence of the older building may lead. The aisles of the nave were set out in the fourteenth century on either side of an older and shorter nave. The south aisle was set out first, the width of the eastern bay being measured from a new buttress in the angle of nave and transept. On the north side there was a thirteenth century buttress in this position: the builders, in setting out their north aisle, overlooked the fact that this buttress was of less projection than the newly built one on the other side, with the result that their buttress measurements throughout varied on both sides, while the standard of width between the buttresses, which had been employed on the south side, was retained. Consequently, as the columns, in a vaulted church, have to be built in line with the buttresses of the corresponding aisle walls, the columns were not opposite one another, and the discrepancy increased as the church advanced westward. When the builders got clear of the intervening building, in the western bays of the nave, they were able to rectify their mistake slightly; but the effect is unpleasantly noticeable in the obliquity of the transverse arches of the vaulting.

Sec. 45. If errors like this could take place in churches where the width of the bays of the aisles was calculated, they were much more likely to take place where builders worked with less accurate ideas of measurement. In an unvaulted church, where the pressure of the roof is not a serious factor in the construction, the exact correspondence of pier to buttress need not be taken into account; and there are many churches in which the spacing of the aisles is quite independent of that of the arcades. This happens at Melbourne, where the church was not planned for stone vaulting. The builders seem to have thought that they could get in six bays between the transept and the space planned for one of the western towers; but found that, on the measurements they had adopted, there was room only for five. They corrected their miscalculation by broadening the division of the wall between the fourth and fifth bay of the aisles. When they came to build the arcades, they were conscious of their previous error, and planned them in five equal bays irrespective of the plan of the aisles. In churches of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, especially in districts like Norfolk or south Lincolnshire, where much rebuilding was done, the regularity of plan is often remarkable. The nave of the famous church of Heckington, near Sleaford, was planned with an exact correspondence between aisles and arcades: pier is opposite buttress, window opposite window. Islip and Brampton Ash in Northamptonshire show an equal accuracy. But, while such agreement is desirable, it is neither necessary nor general. And, where the arcades are broken through earlier walls, the correspondence is seldom very precise. The central line of the east walls of the aisles, as set out first, will usually correspond to a line drawn across the centre of the chancel arch: similarly, the line of the west walls will be an extension of the west wall of the nave, or of a line drawn across the tower arch. The aisles will be spaced into as many equal, or nearly equal bays, as can be got in between the buttresses at either end. When, however, the building of the arcade is taken in hand, the responds or half-piers at either end will seldom be built directly against the piers of the chancel arch, or against the west wall of the nave; but projecting pieces of the old walls will be left as a backing to them. It follows that, although the arcade may be divided into the same number of bays as the aisles, the standard of spacing will be different, and consequently, unless a very regular system of planning is adopted, the piers will not be exactly opposite the solid portions of the aisle walls, and consequently the centres of the arches will be out of line with the centres of the windows. Again, it may be that, by accident or design, the backing for the responds may project more on one side of the nave than on the other, at either or both ends. The result will be that the piers of one arcade will be out of line with those of the arcade opposite. That discrepancies of this kind were sometimes the result of intention cannot be denied; but there is generally some practical reason to be found for the intention, and the discrepancies themselves were a _pis aller_ which the builders would have avoided, if they could. That deliberate irregularity with which medieval masons are sometimes credited is a fancy, which careful consideration of the circumstances will dispel.

Sec. 46. Hitherto we have spoken of the aisled nave as though both aisles were planned at one and the same time. This, however, was by no means always the case. At Gretton in Northamptonshire, the north aisle was built soon after the beginning of the twelfth century: the south aisle followed twenty or thirty years later. The north arcade at Northallerton is of massive twelfth century work, with rounded arches: the south arcade was added in the thirteenth century, and has slender columns with pointed arches. In such cases, the north aisle may have been built first, to avoid interference with the burial ground south of the church. Very often only one aisle was added. The little church of Whitwell, Rutland, has a south aisle, added in the fourteenth century, with a chapel at its east end. No north aisle was built: but a drain in the north wall of the nave shows that there was a third altar against the north side of the rood screen. Usually, when one aisle was built long after another, the spacing of the new arcade was made to correspond with that of the old. If the old arcade had heavy twelfth century columns, the new one, with its lighter columns, would have broader arches. But it sometimes happens that the old spacing was disregarded, for very good reasons. The north arcade of Middleton Tyas church, in north Yorkshire, consists of six bays: the columns are heavy, the arches low and round headed, and very narrow. The interior of the church must have been very dark; and the builders of the south aisle, in the fourteenth century, aimed at throwing more light upon it. They therefore planned their new arcade, with broad pointed arches springing from octagonal columns, in four instead of six bays, and so, from broad windows in the aisle, introduced the necessary light. Something of the same kind happened at Theddingworth in Leicestershire: the effect is, of course, one-sided, but in both cases the light admitted enhances the merits of the earlier arcade, which, until then, had to be taken on trust.

Sec. 47. But there are further instances--and these, perhaps, are the most instructive--where aisles were not merely built at two different periods, but where the growth of one or both aisles was gradual. As an instance of this, may be cited the beautiful church of Raunds in Northamptonshire. Raunds seems to have been one of those cases in which the Norman chancel and nave were of the same width, and possibly were undivided by any chancel arch. In the thirteenth century the west tower and spire were built, and a broad south aisle was added to the nave. This aisle was of four bays, and the point at which it stopped probably marked the dividing line between the nave and chancel. However, the builders certainly intended to carry on the aisle eastward, as a south chapel to the chancel, which they now rebuilt and lengthened. Early in the fourteenth century, the south aisle was continued eastward, an arcade of five bays being added to the four bays already existing. The new bays were made rather narrower than those in the earlier part of the arcade. A strange feature of the new work was the insertion of a chancel arch, the south pier of which bisects one of the new arches. Thus, while three bays and a half of the new arcade belong to the chancel and quire, a bay and a half belong to the nave. The arch dividing the south aisle from the chancel chapel springs from the pier between the end of the old arcade and the inserted pier of the chancel arch. At the same time, the outer wall of the south aisle seems to have been practically rebuilt, although much of the older work was retained. There may have been a thirteenth century north aisle as well. Whether this was the case or no, a new north aisle and arcade were built during the fourteenth century. The aisle was set out in seven bays, six of which contained broad three-light windows, while a north doorway was made in the third bay from the west end. The east wall was built on foundations in a line with the chancel arch, while the west wall was in a line with the tower arch and west wall of the south aisle. It is obvious, therefore, that the planning of the new aisle was totally different from that of the older aisle and chapel. However, when the builders came to their arcade, instead of building it in seven bays, as the new aisle demanded, they built it in five, setting their new columns in a line with those on the opposite side. But while, on the south side, there was an awkward half-bay between the end of the arcade and the chancel arch, a solid piece of wall was left between the north pier of the chancel arch and the eastern respond of the new arcade. A compromise was thus effected between the aisles, and an appearance of regularity was ensured. Directly, however, one begins to examine the plan of the church, and to trace the transverse lines from window to window, and buttress to buttress, it will be found that only in one place can a line be drawn which will pass straight from the centre of one buttress to that of the buttress opposite, and will pass through the centre of the intervening columns on its way.

Sec. 48. It already has been shown that builders were very unwilling, in making their additions to churches, to destroy old work altogether. At times they displayed an extraordinary conservatism in their re-use of old material in their new work. This was not invariable. In the splendid churches of south Lincolnshire, during the fourteenth century, their aim seems to have been complete rebuilding; and such examples as the magnificent nave at Swaton, near Sleaford, or the neighbouring church of Billingborough, show how old work must have been swept away by the enthusiasm for lofty arcades, elaborately traceried windows, and walls of dressed stone-work. On the other hand, half the charm of the hardly less beautiful churches of Northamptonshire is the result of the clever way in which the masons dove-tailed all the old stone-work which was worth preserving into their new additions. Such churches as Tansor and Oundle are, for that reason, unexcelled in interest, offering, as they do, almost inexhaustible problems as to the development of their plan. In all parts of England we find that builders, whatever else they destroyed, carefully kept, as a general rule, the doorways, and especially the south doorway, of the buildings which they enlarged. This accounts for the large number of handsome Norman doorways which remain in the walls of aisles obviously later than the doorways themselves. At Birkin in Yorkshire, the south aisle was not built till the middle of the fourteenth century, but the doorway was removed to its new position from the wall of the aisleless church. One very exceptional case occurs at Felton in Northumberland. Towards the beginning of the thirteenth century, the west part of the south wall of the church was cut through, a chapel was added, and, east of the chapel, a porch was built. Rather more than fifty or sixty years later, it was determined to add a south aisle the full length of the nave. The width of the aisle was taken from that of the existing chapel and porch. To connect the chapel with the new work, the side walls of the porch were cut through. The outer doorway of the porch became the new south doorway, while the inner doorway was kept unaltered, as an arch in the new arcade.

Sec. 49. Features which have been touched upon in connexion with Raunds bring us to two new features in the plan--the rebuilding of aisles and the lengthening of churches westward. In most parish churches, aisles, when they were added at first, were extremely narrow. The west wall of Hallaton church in Leicestershire, for example, shows that, in the fourteenth century, originally narrow aisles were heightened and widened. The roof lines of the earlier aisles remain; they were clearly under the same roof as the nave of the church, and had very low side walls. This was not always the case. At Raunds the thirteenth century south aisle was always broad and lofty, and must have had its own roof from the first. And, as the principles of Gothic construction became more familiar, and the larger churches began to exercise a more wide-spread influence upon the parish church, aisles began to increase in breadth and elevation. The small and narrow windows of churches of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries gave way to the broad mullioned and traceried windows of fully developed Gothic work. For these, with their advantage of increased light, more headway was necessary. Aisle walls were consequently heightened or altogether rebuilt. The acutely pointed roof of the nave could no longer be continued downwards to cover these higher aisles. The aisle was consequently covered with a lean-to roof, or with a separate gabled roof of its own. A free increase in width was thus possible. The church of Appleton-le-Street in Yorkshire has a short nave with north and south aisles. The north aisle, added in the early part of the thirteenth century, is narrow, and the roof of the nave was continued over it. The south aisle, which was probably rebuilt a little before 1300, is broader and has a separate lean-to roof. The wide east window of this aisle could not have been introduced, had the south aisle been built to match the scale of the north aisle.

Sec. 50. The introduction of more light, however, was not the only reason for the rebuilding and heightening of aisles. The east end of an aisle, as has been said, provided a convenient place for one of the side altars of the church. This was the case even in the narrow aisles of the twelfth and thirteenth century, many of which, like the north aisle of Great Easton church in Leicestershire, provided with a drain, aumbry, or a corbel for a statue, bear witness to the existence of a contemporary altar. At Harringworth in Northamptonshire there had been an aisleless church, to which a tower had been added at the end of the twelfth, and aisles early in the thirteenth century. On 24 October 1305 Edward I granted letters patent to William la Zouche, by which he had licence to assign a certain amount of land to two chantry chaplains in the chapel of All Saints. This may have been his private chapel, but was possibly in the church. A little earlier than this, to judge by the character of the architecture, a new north aisle had been built, with a new altar at the east end. Very soon after the granting of the licence, it would appear that the whole of the south arcade was taken down, and a new south aisle and arcade built. The work was done in a very conservative spirit, for the old thirteenth century porch and inner doorway were rebuilt on the new site, and an old string-course was re-used internally, beneath the new windows. The piscina and the three sedilia, which belonged to the altar at the end of the aisle, remain in the south wall, and there are corbels for statues on either side of the east window. However, rebuilding did not stop here; for it seems that, during the next few years, the north arcade was entirely rebuilt so as nearly to match that on the south. Thus the work, beginning with the north aisle, and extending over some thirty or forty years, finished on the side on which it began. Numerous examples of a closely parallel kind, fortified by documentary evidence, might be given.

Sec. 51. The rebuilding of the south aisle, about 1313, at Newark, was the prelude to an entire rebuilding of the church, which extended over many years. The builders began by setting out their aisles as usual, and by the middle of the fourteenth century the south aisle was finished, and the lower courses of the north aisle and the new aisled chancel were built. However, in 1349, the Black Death interrupted the work. The north aisle and chancel were not completed, and the new arcades of nave and chancel were not built until the fifteenth century. In this case there were certainly older, and almost certainly narrower aisles. The rebuilding included aisles on a larger scale, and new internal arcades whose spacing corresponded to the spacing of the aisle walls. All systematic rebuilding, in the full development of Gothic art, began with the planning of the aisles. The naves of Cirencester and Northleach churches, rebuilt at the end of the middle ages, are examples of this method. The arcades at Cirencester are known to have been built about 1514-5; but the aisles were obviously completed first, and their remodelling may have been begun in the second quarter of the fifteenth century. At Northleach the nave was finished about 1458; and there seems to have been a break of some years between the building of the aisles and the destruction of the older church which, no doubt, lay within them. But it did not always happen that the full intention of the builders was carried out. One of the most splendid schemes which we possess for the enlargement of a parish church was the great enterprise begun at Grantham soon after the middle of the thirteenth century. An aisleless Norman church had been enlarged at the end of the twelfth century by the addition of aisles to the nave, the connexion being formed by arcades of rounded arches springing from very elegant clustered columns. Above the arcades were low clerestories, lighted by round-headed windows. About 1230, the neighbouring church of Newark was taken in hand by masons, who built a new west tower up to a certain height, and, as an afterthought, planned aisles to engage the tower completely. As we have seen, the building of the aisles at Newark upon their present scale did not begin till much later. The work of rebuilding at Grantham was clearly inspired by that already begun at Newark. A tower was planned on a site much to the west of the nave, and was engaged within very broad aisles. The tower and north aisle were set out first. The north aisle was divided into seven bays, with a large traceried window in each bay, the western bay being much wider between the buttresses than the rest, owing to the greater space taken up by the tower and its piers internally. The remaining six bays were set out with equal widths between the buttresses, the middle bay of the aisle being covered by a porch. The eastern bay overlapped the western part of the aisleless chancel, its western buttress being in a line with the division between chancel and nave. The western bay of the south aisle was set out about the same time, and there was, no doubt, an intention of proceeding with the rest on the same lines as in the north aisle. There can also be little doubt that the builders intended to take down the old arcades, and build new arcades, with spacing corresponding to that of their aisles, and to lengthen the chancel eastwards, while bringing its western portion into the nave. The tower and north aisle were built on the intended scale; and, when the tower had risen to a certain height, the ambition of the builders was fired to add to it an extra stage, hitherto uncontemplated, below the spire with which it was to be crowned. This project of giving their church a tower and stone spire, which remained, for many years, the loftiest in England, evidently curtailed the full accomplishment of their earlier plan. The columns of the old arcades were kept, and the tower was connected by arcades of two bays with the angles of the west wall of the old church; while an arch was pierced through the north wall of the chancel, to give access to the east bay of the new aisle. The new arches were pointed: in order to match them, the older round-headed arches were taken down, and pointed arches built, which cut into and blocked the clerestory windows. This change was made with great economy of material, the springing stones of some of the old arches being kept to afford footing for the new. When the south aisle was seriously begun, about 1300, similar economy was shown. Four bays, in addition to the western bay, were spaced out, without regard to the plan of the north aisle. The fourth bay from the west was covered by a porch, smaller than that on the north side; and the east wall of the aisle was probably built on a line with the division between nave and chancel. Half a century later, the east wall was taken down, and the south aisle was extended to the full length of the chancel; but this later development was not contemplated by the thirteenth century builders. These hesitations and changes, consequent upon the expense entailed by the north aisle and by the alteration in the elevation of the tower and spire, make Grantham second to no English church in interest.

Sec. 52. Grantham also provides us with a lengthened nave. The position of its earlier west wall is clearly shown by the masses of masonry which occur between the eastern bay of the new, and western bay of the old, arcade on either side. The responds on the eastern side of these pieces of wall are twelfth century work: on the west side, they belong to the later part of the thirteenth century. Such lengthening was probably very common in later Gothic times, and we may surmise that it took place in many instances where arcades were entirely rebuilt, and no visible trace of the process was left. However, there are many churches in which one or more extra bays have been added to the nave, and the join of the old and new work is marked as at Grantham. Whaplode church in south Lincolnshire had its early twelfth century nave lengthened by three bays about 1180. At Colsterworth, near Grantham, a western bay was added to the nave about the same time, and an earlier north aisle lengthened. Above the piece of wall which occurs between the older and newer work, the quoins of the aisleless church remain entire. Usually, as at Grantham, the lengthening of the nave was undertaken in connexion with a new western tower, which was built up outside the church, and then connected with it by one or two bays of arcading. Almost contemporary with the tower and spire of Grantham are those of Tilney All Saints, near Lynn. Here a single bay was added west of the late twelfth century nave; and, as no new aisles were contemplated, the old arcades, with their rounded arches, were left intact. Bubwith in Yorkshire, and Caunton in Nottinghamshire, are later examples of churches where the tower was built west of the end of an earlier nave, and a bay was built to connect it with the older work. Sometimes, as at Gretton in Northamptonshire, where the slope of a steep hill forbade extension far to the west, a new tower was built only a few feet beyond the limit of the old nave. In such a case, the side walls of the nave might be carried solid westwards to meet the tower, or, as happened at Gretton, narrow arches might be made between the tower and the west end of the older wall. The beautiful tower and spire at Oundle were built just outside the west wall of the thirteenth century nave; and were doubtless intended to be followed by a complete rebuilding of the arcades--such a rebuilding as took place at Lavenham in Suffolk, towards the end of the fifteenth century. The idea, however, was abandoned, and the space between the arcades and the tower filled in solid with rather rough masonry.

Sec. 53. The position of the western tower in the plan is normally at the west end of the nave, with which it is connected by an arch, low at first, but loftier as time goes on, until, in later Gothic churches, its height frequently is nearly that of the whole nave. The remaining three walls are usually external, and clear of the aisles. But sometimes, owing to a freak of planning, or, more frequently, owing to the conditions of the site, the tower is, as at Bibury, at the west end of one of the aisles. At Gedling in Nottinghamshire the tower and spire are at the end of the north aisle. The tower of St Michael's, Cambridge, is at the west end of the south aisle: probably the western extension of the church was prevented by the neighbourhood of the street, a circumstance which often accounts for the irregularity of plan in some town churches. At St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, built on the edge of the "red cliff" from which it takes its name, the tower and spire are at the end of the north aisle: had they been planned in the usual place, a full bay of the nave would have been sacrificed. The tower at Spalding was planned, in the first instance, to stand against the south wall of the west bay of the south aisle: subsequently a new south aisle was built east of it. One of the most curious instances is that of St Mary's at Leicester, where the tower, subsequently, as at Spalding, heightened by a spire, was planned in the thirteenth century, outside a very narrow south aisle. A tower at the west end of the nave would have encroached upon the inner ward of the adjacent castle. The chancel of St Mary's was used for collegiate services, and parochial accommodation was limited. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, a very wide south aisle, a parish church in itself, was built the full length of the nave, and overlapping the chancel at the east end. The tower was left standing on piers entirely within the west end of the new aisle. It may be added that, where towers occur at the end of aisles, they seldom project beyond the west wall of the nave, but open into the nave by an arch in the north or south wall, as the case may be. Plans with two western towers, as at Melbourne or St Margaret's at Lynn, are of very rare occurrence; and, where they are found, the plan was probably designed on more ambitious lines than those of the ordinary parish church.

Sec. 54. The plan in which the western tower is engaged within the aisles--that is, where the aisles are brought up flush with the west end of the church--is not very common. Still, instances occur in all parts of England. At Grantham, the plan is deliberate. It was imitated, as has been said, from Newark, where the side walls of the tower had been pierced with arches as an after-thought. Newark, in turn, may have taken the design from Tickhill in south Yorkshire; and the design at Tickhill may have been taken from the early and unpretentious example at Sherburn-in-Elmet. Grantham probably suggested other similar designs, such as Ewerby, near Sleaford. Several of our finest late Gothic churches, like St Nicholas at Newcastle, have plans in which the aisles are continued up to the west face of the tower. The method affords full development to the aisles, and, as at Sileby in Leicestershire, has an imposing interior effect. Outside, however, the aisles crowd the base of the tower too much, and the fine effect of a lofty, free standing tower is lost. Sometimes aisles were extended westwards, so as to engage an earlier tower, as at Sleaford, where the low tower and spire are almost overwhelmed by a pair of wide fourteenth century aisles. At Brigstock and Winterton, late Saxon towers have been left without alteration inside aisles which have been brought westward in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The nave of Holy Trinity, Cambridge, was much widened in the fourteenth century, and a small tower and spire of earlier date were brought entirely within the new nave, as happened in the south aisle at St Mary's, Leicester, and were left without sufficient abutment. As a consequence, the arches of the ground story had to be strengthened about a century later with additional masonry. Cases occur, as at Coln Rogers in Gloucestershire, where a tower has been built within the west end of an earlier church. In most of such instances, the churchyard boundary probably allowed of no further building westward. The nearness of the churchyard boundary also seems to have given cause to a peculiarity which may be seen at Wollaton, near Nottingham, Dedham in Essex, and in a few other places, where the west tower is in its usual position, but is pierced from north to south by an archway. It is possible that this gave facility to processions, which could thus pass round the church without leaving consecrated ground. The tower of old All Saints, Cambridge, now destroyed, projected over the public foot-way of the street, which passed through its ground story; while St John's, Bristol, is built on the city wall, and the tower and spire, which it shared with the adjoining church of St Lawrence, are over the south gate of the city.

Sec. 55. Sometimes, as at Oundle, the tower was rebuilt with a view to the reconstruction of the whole church. But, as also at Oundle, the design was often abandoned, or was altered. The magnificent tower of St Michael's, Coventry, was built, between 1373 and 1394, at the west end of an older nave: its spire was not begun till 1430. Whether the rebuilding of the nave was contemplated when the tower was begun, it is impossible to say. A new nave was actually begun in 1432, and finished in 1450. A thoroughfare immediately south of the church prevented extension on that side. The old south porch was retained in place as the principal entrance, so that the line of the wall of the south aisle follows closely that of the original church. The new south arcade was set out, not in a line with the south-east buttress of the tower, but somewhat to the north of it, so that the buttress is external; while, for the width of the nave, a space approximating to twice the internal breadth of the tower was taken. The tower is thus placed almost wholly south of the central axis of the nave produced westward. Here, once more, we may note the influence of site on the plan.

Sec. 56. The people's entrance to the church was ordinarily through a porch, covering the north or south doorway of the nave. The south doorway is usually covered by a porch. Frequently, as at Hallaton in Leicestershire, or Henbury in Gloucestershire, there is a north as well as a south porch. At Warmington, near Oundle, where there is a beautiful doorway in the west tower, the vaulted south porch is the principal entrance; but there is also a somewhat smaller north porch, also vaulted. The chief porch at Grantham is on the north side; but there is also a large porch on the south. At Newark, there is only a south porch, on the side of the church next the market place. The south porch of St Mary Redcliffe, at Bristol, is the ordinary entrance of the church; but the chief entrance of the building, until the fifteenth century, was on the north side, at the head of the abrupt slope towards the city. In the fourteenth century, this entrance was covered by a large and lofty octagonal porch, approached by a flight of steps. There is an octagonal south porch at Chipping Norton, and a hexagonal south porch at Ludlow. The magnificent porches of the fifteenth century, as at Burford in Oxfordshire, Northleach in Gloucestershire, Worstead in Norfolk, Walberswick in Suffolk, St Mary Magdalene's at Taunton, or Yatton in Somerset, are usually on the south side of the church.

Sec. 57. The positions of the porch and doorway in the wall of the aisle vary. At St Nicholas, Newcastle, where the west tower is engaged within the aisles, there is a porch in the western bay of each aisle. Usually, however, the porch will be found in the second bay of one of the aisles, counting from the west end. Sometimes, especially in larger churches, the porch occurs a bay further east. At Warmington and at Grantham, the two porches of either church are nearly opposite each other, and project approximately from the centre of the walls of the aisles. Where the porch has been pushed eastward in this way, the west end of the aisle seems to have been occupied by one or more chapels. There are indications of this at Warmington; while, in the neighbouring church of Tansor, where the porch is in the usual place, but the aisle has been lengthened somewhat to the west, there was certainly an altar west, as well as east, of the porch. There was at least one chantry chapel west of the south porch at Grantham. The south porch at Ludlow covers the wall of the third bay of the aisle from the west: here there were two chapels in the western part of the aisle. There was another chapel at the west end of the north aisle. It can hardly be proved that the position of porches was actually planned with this use of the aisles in view; but there can be no doubt that advantage was frequently taken of the space thus added to the aisle.