ely, of the transepts.
The north and south arches of the crossing, however, remain in a blocked
condition, and tell the tale of what has happened. Wakefield cathedral
is another instance of a large parish church whose aisleless cruciform
plan has gradually disappeared within the aisles, until the plan is--or
was till the additions of a few years ago--an aisled rectangle, the
origin of which is certainly not obvious at first sight. The
transformations here described must clearly be understood not to apply
to cruciform churches generally, but merely to churches which, with an
originally cruciform plan, needed enlargement. Many handsome late Gothic
buildings, like the churches of Rotherham and Chesterfield, or St Mary's
at Nottingham, are regular cruciform churches with central towers; and
sometimes, as at Newark, transeptal chapels were the latest of all
additions to a church. But, where the transeptal chapel cramped
necessary space, it had to disappear. At St Margaret's, Leicester, the
arches into the transeptal chapels remain; but the chapels themselves
have entirely disappeared, and the arches merely form part of the arcade
between the nave and its broad aisles.

Sec. 72. The aim of restorers and rebuilders from the middle of the
fourteenth century onwards was to convert the church into a rectangle
with aisles. As we have seen, the chancel was constantly, in late Gothic
churches, an aisleless projection from the main fabric; but, where it
was aisled, the old haphazard methods were often abandoned, and the
aisles were made of approximately equal size. The old distinction
between nave and chancel, marked by the chancel arch, and the arches
between chapels and aisles, begin to vanish. Where the chancel arch was
kept, as at Long Sutton in Lincolnshire, new chancel chapels were
prolonged westward on each side of the nave, in place of the old nave
aisles. Fairford church in Gloucestershire was rebuilt towards the end
of the fifteenth century, to contain the splendid stained glass which
had just been acquired for it. A central tower was built on strong
piers, as a concession to the old plan; but the aisles of the nave were
continued on either side of the tower and along the sides of the chancel
till within a bay of the east end. But, in a great many churches, not
merely the aisles, but the nave and chancel also became continuous,
without a structural division. This feature, common in East Anglia and
the south-west of England,