+PARISH CHURCHES.+ Many of these were of exceptional beauty of composition and detail. They display the greatest variety of plan, churches with two equal-gabled naves side by side being not uncommon. A considerable proportion of them date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and are chiefly interesting for their square, single, west towers and their carved wooden ceilings (see below). The tower was usually built over the central western porch; broad and square, with corner buttresses terminating in pinnacles, it was usually finished without spires. Crenelated battlements crowned the upper story. When spires were added the transition from the square tower to the octagonal spire was effected by _broaches_ or portions of a square pyramid intersecting the base of the spire, or by corner pinnacles and flying-buttresses. [Illustration: FIG. 138.--ROOF OF NAVE, ST. MARY’S, WESTONZOYLAND.] +WOODEN CEILINGS.+ The English treated woodwork with consummate skill. They invented and developed a variety of forms of roof-truss in which the proper distribution of the strains was combined with a highly decorative treatment of the several parts by carving, moulding, and arcading. The ceiling surfaces between the trusses were handled decoratively, and the oaken open-timber ceilings of many of the English churches and civic or academic halls (Christ Church Hall, Oxford; Westminster Hall, London) are such noble and beautiful works as quite to justify the substitution of wooden for vaulted ceilings (Fig. 138). The _hammer-beam_ truss was in its way as highly scientific, and æsthetically as satisfactory, as any feature of French Gothic stone construction. Without the use of tie-rods to keep the rafters from spreading, it brought the strain of the roof upon internal brackets low down on the wall, and produced a beautiful effect by the repetition of its graceful curves in each truss. +CHAPELS AND HALLS.+ Many of these rival the cathedrals in beauty and dignity of design. The royal chapels at Windsor and Westminster have already been mentioned, as well as King’s College Chapel at Cambridge, and Christ Church Hall at Oxford. To these college halls should be added the chapel of Merton College at Oxford, and the beautiful chapel of St. Stephen at Westminster, most unfortunately demolished when the present Parliament House was erected. The Lady-chapels of Gloucester and Ely, though connected with the cathedrals, are really independent designs of late date, and remarkable for the richness of their decoration, their great windows, and elaborate ribbed vaulting. Some of the halls in mediæval castles and manor-houses are also worthy of note, especially for their timber ceilings.