The Historical Growth of the English Parish ChurchThompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
History
The Historical Growth of the English Parish Church
Thompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
Church architecture -- England
are the chancels of North Luffenham in Rutland, or of Hodgeston in
Pembrokeshire--the latter, no doubt, one of the fruits of that movement
in the diocese of St David's, to which bishop Henry Gower (1328-47)
gave a powerful impulse.
§ 42. The aisleless chancel survived as a favourite feature of the
plan all through the middle ages. The aisled nave, with the deep
aisleless chancel beyond, is beautiful in plan and elevation alike;
and hardly any of the great Norfolk churches is so satisfactory in
effect as the fourteenth century church at Tunstead, or the great
fifteenth century church of Walpole St Peter, where the rebuilding of
the chancel followed that of the nave. The wealthy lay folk of East
Anglia naturally took charge of the repair of the nave as their own
part of the church. The rectors, monastic or otherwise, were less
active about the chancel. The result is that the uniform magnificence
of Walpole St Peter is by no means found everywhere. The small vaulted
thirteenth century chancel at Blakeney in north-east Norfolk, is quite
out of proportion to the large fifteenth century nave and west tower.
The magnificent church of Sall, near Aylsham, was entirely rebuilt in
the fifteenth century; but the proportions of the chancel are very
modest compared with the gigantic nave. Lavenham in Suffolk has one of
the most ornate naves of the later part of the fifteenth century, and
a tower of great height. The fourteenth century chancel, however, was
kept, and, although chapels were added to it on the north and south,
the eastern bay is insignificant in proportion and rough in masonry
when contrasted with the nave. A similar disparity, not of style but
of design, exists between the nave and tower of Stoke-by-Nayland and
the less carefully rebuilt chancel. The rebuilding of a chancel may
occasionally indicate that monastic impropriators neglected their
duties, until they were compelled to repair. The hastily rebuilt
chancel at Harringworth in Northamptonshire, where Elstow abbey was
rector, is in striking contrast to the earlier nave, and may perhaps be
explained in this way. Croyland abbey had to attend to its duties at
Wellingborough in 1383, and the present aisled chancel is the result.
At Walpole St Peter the church was evidently lengthened eastwards. The
parishioners were probably allowed to pull down the old chancel when
they built their new nave, and to encroach on its site: they naturally
would contribute towards the new chancel, and this may account for the
unusual splendour of the whole design.
[Illustration: Fig. 12. Walpole St Peter: from N.E.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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