f the tower. But upon its
western side is a small rectangular building of contemporary date, which
was not a porch in front of the tower, but a westward extension of the
body of the church, the main entrances being on either side of the
tower. The foundations of a similar projecting building have been
discovered to the east of the tower, beneath the floor of the later
nave. It is therefore clear that the ground floor of the tower, or
rather of a high tower-like building, formed the body of the church, and
that the eastern projection was the chancel. There are clear indications
at Broughton, also in north Lincolnshire, that this plan was used, at
any rate, once again. The tower at Broughton is obviously later than
that at Barton: the doorway, whose details are of a post-Conquest
character, is in the south wall; and a large circular stair-turret, like
that at Brixworth, projects from the west wall. Probably there was only
a chancel here, and no western annexe to correspond. A similar
stair-turret occurs at Hough-on-the-Hill, between Grantham and Lincoln:
the tower, now western, has a doorway in the south wall, and probably
stands mid-way in date between Barton and Broughton. It is planned on a
very ample scale, with thin walls and a large floor-space. The main
fabric of the church is altogether of a later date; and there are no
indications, at any rate above ground, of an earlier building east of
the tower. The size of the tower, the provision of a stair-turret, as at
Broughton, to leave the ground floor clear, suggest that here we may
have a third example of the plan in which the tower covered the main
body of the church. The arrangement at Barnack gives grounds for a
suspicion of something of the same kind there. In all these cases the
tower has been a tower from the beginning; but at Barton-on-Humber the
uppermost stage was added towards the end of the Saxon period.

[Illustration: Fig. 4. St Peter's, Barton-on-Humber: from S.W.]

Sec. 21. In these buildings we seem to discover the influence of the
centralised plan, acting through the channel of German art. It would be
absurd to say that the plan of Barton-on-Humber was inspired by the plan
of the palace-church at Aachen, which was an adaptation, with some
improvement, of the plan of San Vitale at Ravenna. No masterly
intellectual effort, such as the Aachen plan shows, was necessary to
plan a rectangle with two smaller rectangles at either end. But the
church at Aache