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
at Nottingham, are regular cruciform churches with central towers; and
sometimes, as at Newark, transeptal chapels were the latest of all
additions to a church. But, where the transeptal chapel cramped
necessary space, it had to disappear. At St Margaret's, Leicester, the
arches into the transeptal chapels remain; but the chapels themselves
have entirely disappeared, and the arches merely form part of the arcade
between the nave and its broad aisles.
Sec. 72. The aim of restorers and rebuilders from the middle of the
fourteenth century onwards was to convert the church into a rectangle
with aisles. As we have seen, the chancel was constantly, in late Gothic
churches, an aisleless projection from the main fabric; but, where it
was aisled, the old haphazard methods were often abandoned, and the
aisles were made of approximately equal size. The old distinction
between nave and chancel, marked by the chancel arch, and the arches
between chapels and aisles, begin to vanish. Where the chancel arch was
kept, as at Long Sutton in Lincolnshire, new chancel chapels were
prolonged westward on each side of the nave, in place of the old nave
aisles. Fairford church in Gloucestershire was rebuilt towards the end
of the fifteenth century, to contain the splendid stained glass which
had just been acquired for it. A central tower was built on strong
piers, as a concession to the old plan; but the aisles of the nave were
continued on either side of the tower and along the sides of the chancel
till within a bay of the east end. But, in a great many churches, not
merely the aisles, but the nave and chancel also became continuous,
without a structural division. This feature, common in East Anglia and
the south-west of England, was the result of the importance of carved
and painted wood-work in late Gothic churches. The rood screen,
stretching across nave and aisles, appeared to full advantage, when
unbroken by the chancel arch. The splendid timber roofs of nave and
aisles gained in effect, if they formed, as at Southwold, or in the
churches of Norwich, an unbroken covering to the church from end to end.
In Norfolk and Suffolk, where the work of rebuilding began in the
fourteenth century, as at Cawston, Worstead, or Tunstead, the chancel
arch was often kept. At Worstead and other Norfolk churches the method
pursued by the builders was precisely opposite to that which we have
seen employed by Gloucestershire masons at Cirencester and other places,
and may see in most of the fifteenth century churches of Somerset. The
arcades were rebuilt first, and the aisles followed. Many of these
churches were doubtless enlarged from much smaller buildings. The south
aisle at Ingham was probably the nave of the earlier church, to which
the present nave, north aisle, chancel, and west tower, were added. The
aisles in most cases continued at a uniform width eastward as chancel
chapels. The north aisle at Worstead was continued by a two-storied
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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