It is not easy to describe the general plans of churches, as the remains we possess are too scanty to be generalised upon. Some had aisles, some transepts without aisles, many had neither. One, at least, has a central tower without transepts; and at least one a central tower with transepts. Some had apsidal chancels, and some had the square end. The towers, in a great majority of instances, are at the west end. The walls are in some cases by no means low, and the naves occasionally of greater width than is usual in village churches of later periods.
What forms are made use of for pillars we are but imperfectly aware. One of the notices I have quoted speaks of their being square and of other forms. The few which remain in situ are of the former kind, mere fragments of wall: but at Worth Church there are, in the jambs of the chancel arch, half pillars, 2½ ft. in diameter, with very perfect capitals; and certainly an entire pillar of this form must have suggested the demi-column. At Canterbury there are two round columns brought from Reculver, which are probably of Anglo-Saxon date. Their capitals are of the most remarkable form.
I will make special mention of a few pre-Norman churches and fragments of churches as specimens; but to do more in a lecture such as this would be both tedious and unprofitable; for, however interesting the study of the primæval architecture of our race, it must be confessed that, while in general plan these churches are the progenitors of those we think worthy of imitation, we cannot venture to say so much of their details.
Fig. 206.—Plan and General View of Brixworth Church, Northamptonshire.
I exhibit a plan and a general view of Brixworth Church, enlarged from drawings kindly lent me by Mr. Roberts, who has given the church the most careful study. We have documentary evidence of the erection of the church by the abbots of Peterborough, about 680. Being near the ruins of a Roman station, it contains much Roman brick.
The chancel, or rather the sanctuary, was apsidal, with a surrounding aisle, and raised high on a crypt of corresponding plan. This sanctuary and aisle open by three arches into a choir of 30 ft. square, and this, I think, by a single arch, into a nave about 30 ft. by 60 ft.
This nave had arcades opening into either aisles, or, as Mr. Roberts thinks, into cubicula or oratories, the foundation of which he has found. The arches are turned in Roman bricks, very strangely used; a steep skewback being formed for their springings to reduce the angle of convergence, and so moderate the thickness of the mortar-joint, which, in arches of such a depth, would have been inconvenient. The nave and choir have had a clerestory, the windows of which have arches of Roman bricks. This is thought by some to be a later addition, from the reduced thickness of the walls; but of this I feel far from certain. Mr. Roberts suggests it as possible that the wide nave was again subdivided by arcades; but I confess I much doubt this.
To this original church a western tower was subsequently added, in which the Roman brick does not take so prominent a place; and later still, though still in Anglo-Saxon days, a very large round stair-turret was added, west of the tower.