The Ground Plan of the English Parish ChurchThompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
History
The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church
Thompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
Church architecture -- England
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 10. Plan of Raunds church, Northants.]
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.
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