sles. They then set out the aisles upon either side of the church,
building the outer walls, and dividing them into bays by external
buttresses. Then, opposite each buttress, they proceeded to break
through the walls of the church. Leaving a piece of the old wall to
serve as a footing for each column, they built up the columns in the
thickness of the wall, the masonry being gradually removed as each rose
in height. The arches were made in the same way, the wall being removed
by degrees until the two sides of each arch met at the key-stone. The
aisles were then roofed, and, finally, the masses of wall which still
remained beneath each arch were broken down, and the nave and aisles
thrown into one. The old masonry could be removed through the doorways
of the aisles; and sometimes one of the end walls of either aisle was
left unbuilt to the last, so that the masons could have free entrance
for new, and exit for old, material. The old walls of the nave, above
the columns and arches, were left untouched. In this way the upper parts
of the walls of several Saxon naves--more, probably, than we have
opportunity of discovering--remain to us. The north wall at Geddington
in Northamptonshire is the most striking instance. The practice was so
common as to be general. In hundreds of country churches the plinths on
which the columns of the nave rest are probably pieces of the foundation
of the older wall, refaced, or even left in the rough. Instances are
nearly as common in which the heads of the new arches have blocked
earlier windows; for, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when glass
was rare and expensive, and the openings were usually closed by latticed
shutters, the windows were set high in the wall. There is a remarkable
example of the retention of old work at Seamer, near Scarborough. To
this fine twelfth century aisleless church a north aisle was added in
the fifteenth century. The builders, possibly wishing to avoid expense,
employed the old method, which in those days of prosperity and general
rebuilding had fallen into disuse. In order not to interfere with the
older windows, they deliberately made their arches very low: the result
is that, from the interior of the aisle, one can see that the old wall
was almost entirely kept, the new columns being built up on the line of
the flat pilaster buttresses, which were left unaltered above the
capitals. Sometimes, the connexion between nave and aisles was made by
cutting arche