rtions of the
building to a minimum, the additional light admitted by the same means,
and the long uninterrupted clerestory which forms a wall of glass, with
thin stone divisions, on each side of the upper part of the church.
Sec. 73. The tendency to give the whole church aisles of equal width
throughout, and extending along its whole length, was irresistible,
especially in East Anglia. The church of North Walsham, rebuilt towards
the end of the fourteenth century, is a great rectangle of three
parallel divisions, with axes from east to west, and of nearly equal
breadth. The chapel of St Nicholas at Lynn, rebuilt in 1419, is an even
more striking example of the same design: in both cases the simple and
somewhat monotonous plan is varied by the projection of a handsome south
porch. At Lynn, the thirteenth century west tower, with a spire, was
kept at the south-west corner of the aisled building. But the aisled
rectangular plan, if it attained its highest development in East Anglia,
had been reached already in other parts of England by gradual methods.
It has sometimes been fathered upon aisled naves of friary churches,
which, like the great nave of the Black friars at Norwich, afforded
space for large congregations who came to hear sermons. But it is
probable that the first churches which followed the course of expansion
into the aisled rectangle were directly influenced by the example of the
larger churches, like Lincoln, or, at a later date, York, which, in
extending their eastern arms, aisled their quires, presbyteries, and
eastern chapels, right up to the east wall. Thus the whole quire and
chancel of Newark, with aisles extending their whole length, were
planned in the early part of the fourteenth century, when the great
eastern chapel, the "Angel Quire," of Lincoln, was little more than a
generation old; and, although the progress of the work was long
delayed, the eventual arrangement, in which the high altar was brought
two bays forward from the east wall, and a spacious chapel was left at
the back, exactly recalls the arrangements of Lincoln and York.
Similarly the quire and chancel of the cruciform church of Holy Trinity
at Hull are aisled to their full length: the arrangement, again, is that
of a cathedral rather than a parish church. The influence of cathedral
plans is clearly visible in St Mary Redcliffe at Bristol, and in the
collegiate churches of Ottery St Mary and Crediton: but here the type
followed is
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