§ 27. We have arrived thus at a centralised plan of cruciform shape, of which the component parts are rectangular, the central space being approximately a square. The examples which have been given cannot be proved to follow one another in chronological order, but they represent successive steps in planning and construction, of which Norton-on-Tees is the highest. The importance of the inclusion of the tower in the plan is obvious. In its early appearances, its position is unsettled, but the natural tendency is to place it above a main entrance; and this is usually at the west end of the building. Where the builders aim at a simple centralised plan, the high central rectangle will form, like the round or octagonal central space of Wilfrid's church of St Mary at Hexham, ecclesia ... in modum turris erecta, and, as at Barton-on-Humber, will possibly be heightened by a later generation into a real tower. The distinction of the side chapel from the entrance porches, becoming more fully recognised, will lead to the building of transeptal chapels at the east end of the nave; and thus an important addition will be made to the ordinary longitudinal plan. The need of some central building, against which these additions may abut, will be felt. The tower will thus be introduced between nave and chancel, either as an independent structure, or as an upward extension of part of the side walls. The transepts thus, as at Stow, can be raised to an equal height with nave and chancel. From this to a plan in which the component parts are recognised as interdependent, and are closely knit together in structural unity, is an obvious step. At this point, architectural skill, as distinct from mere building ingenuity, comes into play.
§ 28. As we proceed, we shall find survivals of old plans, even at an advanced period in the middle ages, which prove that progress in architecture was by no means of an uniform kind. Builders in remote, and especially in hilly, districts, from Saxon times to the present day, have naturally restricted themselves to plans which require as little cost as possible to carry out. Local building material is also an important consideration. In districts where good building stone is to be obtained on the spot, or where money is plentiful and water carriage is possible, the development of plan is naturally rapid, and every fifty years or so, additions to churches will be made in which the old plan will become entirely transformed. In woodland districts, the plan will be controlled to no small extent by the requirements of timber construction. In such regions, Saxon churches were probably built of wood. The only wooden church of Saxon times which remains is that of Greenstead in south Essex, with a rectangular chancel and aisleless nave constructed of vertical logs placed side by side, and framed originally into a timber plinth. However, it may be stated as a general rule, that, whatever may be the helps or hindrances to development provided by local materials, the real starting-point of the parish church plan of the middle ages is in every part of the country an aisleless plan; and that this plan consists either of a nave and chancel with a longitudinal axis, or of a nave and chancel whose longitudinal axis is intersected by a transverse axis across transepts. Variations, no doubt, occur; but these will never carry us far from one or other of these fundamental plans. The aisled basilica of the continent found no scope for itself in Saxon England; and it was through an interval of aisleless building that the aisled plan eventually became acclimatised, and then in a form which bears only a superficial kinship to the basilican plan.
CHAPTER III
THE AISLELESS CHURCH OF THE NORMAN PERIOD
§ 29. During the century after the Norman Conquest, the great abbey churches and cathedrals represent the work of a foreign architectural school, gradually acclimatising itself in England; while, on the other hand, the parish church continued to be planned by local men, open to receive the improvements which more skilled foreign masons had introduced. Consequently, while local art received a continually increasing refinement, the plan of the church developed upon traditional lines, and not upon those novel lines which foreign masons would have laid down for it. The chief proof of this is seen in the persistence of the aisleless plan with rectangular chancel and western tower. The tendency of a Norman builder would be to design his church with an apsidal chancel, transepts, and a central tower; his practice would vary, but this would be his favourite plan. On the other hand, the rectangular chancel and western tower remained the favourite terminations of the parish church in England. But, while a large number of rubble-built, unbuttressed Norman towers, usually heightened or otherwise altered in the later middle ages, remain in many parts of England, their relation to the plan suffers some change. The ground floor of the Saxon tower was, as we have noticed, the main entrance to the church. The Norman western tower either contained no western doorway at all, or provided merely an entrance, which was used only on special occasions. At Caistor the ground floor was probably the main porch of the aisleless church; and there are exceptional instances, as at Finchingfield in Essex, where, in fairly advanced Norman work, the same arrangement was clearly contemplated. On the other hand, at Laceby, between Caistor and Grimsby, a south doorway, coeval with the western tower, has always been the main entrance to the church. Similarly, at Hooton Pagnell, and at Blatherwycke in Northamptonshire, south doorways, of the same age as the tower, form the chief entrance. These last three are early Norman examples; but we may go back even further, to find the same thing in churches which are usually reckoned as late Saxon work, at Heapham in Lincolnshire, and Kirk Hammerton, between York and Boroughbridge. In south Yorkshire there are a few churches of the middle of the twelfth century whose western towers are noticeably derived, in their plan and general construction, from the Saxon type—Birkin, Brayton, and Riccall. But in all three, the main entrance to the church was made through a south doorway, the arch of which is covered with elaborate late Norman ornaments. The western tower was thus reduced to the state of a bell-tower at one end of the church, and, while increasing in size and in magnificence, was actually a less indispensable part of the plan than before.
Fig. 5. Aisleless plan: 12th century.
§ 30. The nave of the Norman aisleless church was usually short, and, where the church was entirely rebuilt, rather wide in proportion to its length. The naves of churches like Garton-on-the-Wolds or Kirkburn in Yorkshire, give the effect of spacious halls, of no great length, but wide and lofty. It cannot be doubted, however, that the fabric of the Saxon church was frequently kept, or that the church was rebuilt upon Saxon foundations. It is not unusual, as already stated, to find Saxon quoins still existing at the angles of naves to which aisles have subsequently been added. Evidences, on the other hand, of the westward lengthening of a Saxon nave in the Norman period appear to be rare. At North Witham in south Lincolnshire, the south and (blocked) north doorways are Norman work, in the usual position near the west end of the nave. East of them, however, in the centre of the nave walls, there are distinct traces of the inner openings of a north and south doorway, which may belong to the late Saxon period. That we have here a case of the twelfth century lengthening of an earlier nave may be inferred. The probability is increased by the fact that, in the neighbouring church of Colsterworth, where aisles were added during the early Norman period to a late Saxon fabric, the nave and aisles, towards the end of the twelfth century, were certainly extended a bay westward. As little architectural work is done without a precedent, we may assume that the builders at Colsterworth were following the example of North Witham.