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
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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