The whole design shows the remarkable progress of church architecture, since the time when his hand was formerly employed in its service. The plan is cruciform, with nave, aisles, transepts and chancel, the latter being thoroughly spacious, and open to the body of the church, though well raised above it. The scale is considerable, for it provides for a thousand people, without galleries. The details and ornaments are simple, but (a point on which he always laid great stress) carried out with consistency and harmony of style throughout the whole design.[58] The materials are all of the best and most durable kind, and there is no instance of false pretension in any quarter. Externally the effect depends, as usual with his buildings, very greatly on beauty of proportion, and here, for the first time, he was able to carry out his predilection for a handsome spire in stone--in this case specially needed, as the church rises out of the level plain, and its spire is a prominent object for twenty miles round. Yet the cost (about 10,000_l._) was not so great as that of each of his Islington churches in former days. The work gave him great pleasure, though it came in the very busiest time of the New Palace at Westminster, and though (as has been said) church architecture was not the work to which his professional life was devoted. With greater care for Gothic detail, with a far more thorough grasp of the principles of the old Gothic architects, he did not, however, lose sight of the fundamental ideas of the Church of England’s Service, and secured the effect of space, openness, and unity, which he conceived to be its paramount requirements.[59] CANFORD MANOR.--In Gothic, as in Italian, he was called upon to exercise his remarkable power of modification and reconstruction. Canford Manor, the house of Sir John Guest, was one of the examples of this process. In 1826 Lord de Mauley, who then owned the house, consulted Mr. Blore as to some necessary alterations, and the house was almost rebuilt from his designs between 1826 and 1836, with the exception of the old kitchen, which is named by tradition after John of Gaunt. Of the old house therefore very little remains. Of Mr. Blore’s building there remain, with many modifications, the dining-room and rooms over it on the east front, and the whole of the south front. The rest is the work of Sir C. Barry, who was consulted in 1848 by Sir John Guest. The plan will show clearly the extent of his operations.[60] Alterations had been already begun, and the removal of the principal staircase, entrance hall, [Illustration: CANFORD MANOR HOUSE, DORSET. GENERAL PLAN, SHEWING THE IMPROVEMENTS AS EXECUTED. ALTERATIONS ARE ETCHED IN LIGHT TINT.] [Illustration: CANFORD MANOR HOUSE, DORSET. GENERAL VIEW OF THE HOUSE, AS ALTERED.] and billiard room had cleared the space which the great hall now occupies.