parts of the church, and belong to that class
of chantry chapel of which our cathedrals furnish many examples. In this
case, the chapel is a small separate building, attached to the fabric of
the church, but hardly forming an integral part of it.
Sec. 71. One very important consequence of the addition of aisles and
chantry chapels to chancels, at any rate on a large scale, is seen where
they are applied to plans originally cruciform. We have already seen
that at St Mary's, Shrewsbury, and at Arksey, although much of the
fabric of the old transepts was left, broad chancel chapels tended to
obliterate the cruciform character of the building. The transepts at
Spalding almost escape notice, owing to the double aisle on the south
side of the nave, the aisle and north chapel on the opposite side, and
the large chapel east of the south transept. Moreover, when, in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, aisles were rebuilt or widened,
there was always, as at Tansor, a tendency to decide the width of the
aisle by the length of an existing transept or transeptal chapel, and to
build the new outer wall flush with its gable wall. In this case, the
aisle would be planned to communicate with the transept, and the west
wall of the transept would have to be cut through. Where, as at Arksey,
there was a central tower, the old transept was structurally necessary,
and only as much of its masonry would be removed as was absolutely
necessary. But we have seen that there were cases in which it was
thought advisable to take down the central tower altogether, and build a
new one at the west end, in which case the transepts were of no
structural use; and there were far more cases in which the transeptal
excrescences were merely projecting chapels. In these instances, the
transept was felt to intervene awkwardly between the aisles of nave and
chancel. Accordingly, its side walls and gabled roof were taken down,
its end wall was remodelled, and it was placed under one roof with the
adjacent aisles, in which it became merged. The cruciform plan was thus
lost in certain churches, becoming absorbed in the ordinary elongated
plan, with aisles to nave and chancel. Tamworth church in Staffordshire,
and Marshfield in Gloucestershire, had twelfth century central towers.
These were removed or destroyed, at Tamworth in the fourteenth, at
Marshfield in the fifteenth century, and the aisles and chancel chapels
were widened to the original length, approximat
|