At Moulton an arch at one time apparently sprung from the westernmost
pair of pillars, across the nave, from the engaged pillar rising through
the capital of the nave pillar. There is a strong buttress at the back
of each of these pillars, which are continued to the clerestory, and
can be seen from the outside. There probably was a tower or campanile
standing between the two pillars, which was pulled down probably in the
Rectilinear Period, when the present tower was erected—one bay further to
the west. The northern clerestory, which is Transitional and earlier than
that of the south side, may be compared with that of Whaplode. The south
clerestory is Late Transitional. In the Rectilinear Period, in 1400, the
windows of the clerestories were altered and the present roof was built.
The aisles, originally only 10 feet wide, were in about 1310 widened
to 17 feet, the south aisle being first done. Some of the original
Transitional buttresses were re-used (the eastern and smaller ones), as
was also the fine south Transitional doorway. The north aisle was done
about 1320-25, and the original Transitional doorway was re-used. When
the tower and spire were built about 1380, the aisles were lengthened,
like the nave. Sharpe writes on the tower and spire: “Their relative
proportions may be pronounced faultless.... The tower and spire may be
taken as the most perfect realisation of the Rectilinear form of this
noble addition to the English parish church to be found anywhere.”
The walls of the tower appear to have settled as the work progressed,
but the architects of those days were equal to the emergency, and so
rectified the work as the building progressed, and so well was it done
that the tower has kept its perpendicular for five centuries. The spire
is 6 feet 8 inches at base, and the stone 6 inches thick.
The chancel was rebuilt late in the fourteenth or early in the fifteenth
century, but the chancel arch is post-Reformation work. The east window
and the organ chamber are new. The sedilia were reset in the fourteenth
century. In the north wall is a mutilated sepulchre or founder’s tomb;
also there is a blocked-up vestry door of the same period. The vestry and
room over it have long since disappeared. The rood-screen, which has been
recently very well restored, is of the same date as the chancel, and is
by far the best specimen of a rood-screen in the district.
The church was restored in 1867-8, when (_inter alia_) the organ was
removed from the gallery at the west end and placed in the new organ
chamber. There were also placed in the church a new font, pulpit,
reading desk, and seating, mullions placed in the aisles’ windows, roofs
repaired, gallery at west end of nave removed, and new windows in the
chancel. There were formerly several chapels with altars in the church,
the last vestiges of which were removed at the restoration in 1867-8.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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