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. 74. The work done at Grantham in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries illustrates the purely natural development of the ordinary
aisled church into the aisled rectangle. We have seen, in an earlier
chapter, that, soon after 1300, the church consisted of an aisleless
chancel, which was, however, overlapped at the west end by the north
aisle of the nave; a nave, the north and south aisles of which followed
different systems of spacing; a western tower and spire, engaged within
the aisles; and north and south porches. Several chantries were founded
in the church during the fourteenth century. Not long after the Black
Death of 1349, the south aisle was extended eastward to the whole length
of the chancel. The south wall of the chancel was pierced by an arcade;
and the lady chapel thus formed was raised upon a double crypt. It was
not until more than a century later that the east wall of the north
aisle was taken down, and the "Corpus Christi chancel" built out,
continuing the north aisle without a break, and completely flanking
the north wall of the chancel, through which an arcade was made. Here
the reason of expansion was obviously the growth of chantry chapels; and
the expansion follows the simplest course. The last addition to the
fabric was the present vestry, in which was a chantry founded by the
Hall family. This was built out at right angles to the north aisle, at
the point where the old work was met by the later extension. Not until
the church had been fully aisled, and afforded no further room for new
altars, were chantry chapels usually added in the shape of excrescences
from the fabric.
[Illustration: Fig. 16. Plans of Grantham church: (3) about 1350; (4)
present day.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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