n had made the centralised plan familiar to the builders
of western Europe. In Germany and in France there are traces of its
influence; and we may reasonably suppose that the builders of
Barton-on-Humber were acquainted with the existence of an alternative to
the usual plan of the church with a longitudinal axis, and did not
arrive by haphazard at their concentration of the plan upon a central
point. One earlier example of the centralised plan is known to have
existed in England. In addition to his basilica at Hexham, Wilfrid had
built another church there in the shape of a Greek cross. The
description of it which we possess shows that the central space was the
actual church, that it was tower-like in form, and nearly circular in
shape, and that the arms were simply porch-like projections. Probably it
was a combination of baptistery with tomb-church. It is not likely that
the simple plan of Barton was derived from that at Hexham. Both were
probably the result of continental influence; but, while the church at
Hexham may have been the work of Gallo-Roman masons in direct
communication with the general current of architectural progress, the
church at Barton was probably built by Englishmen, who adapted the
centralised plan to methods natural to their comparative want of skill.

Sec. 22. Neither at this time nor later did the centralised plan in England
develop along the lines suggested by Barton-on-Humber. No real
development on such lines was possible. In Germany, the achievement at
Aachen made possible the polygonal nave of St Gereon at Cologne and the
centralised plan of the Liebfrauenkirche at Trier, as well as many
twelfth and thirteenth century churches whose complicated parts are
planned and massed together with relation to a central tower space. In
England, however, the habit of dealing with circular or polygonal forms
made little progress; and our few "round churches," the plan of the
naves of which was a devout imitation of the church of the Holy
Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and our polygonal chapter houses, are almost all
that we have to show in the way of attempts at a definitely centralised
plan. Our church plan develops as the result of an effort to combine a
series of rectangles effectively; and, while this combination can be
attempted in several different ways, it is obvious that the rigid lines
of the rectangle do not admit of that free scope in centralised planning
which is given by the circle or polygon.

S