and other places, the roof is a half-dome without ribs: this
allows for the display of mural painting, but admits of less light.

[Illustration: Fig. 6. Birkin, Yorkshire: interior.]

Sec. 34. The most important feature in the apsidal plan is the provision of
the distinctly marked quire space between the nave and chancel. This
space also occurs in plans where the chancel is rectangular; but in such
cases it becomes the ground story of a tower. There are famous examples
of this at Iffley, near Oxford, and Studland in Dorset, where the
chancels are vaulted. Coln St Denis in Gloucestershire, where the tower
is of very wide area, and projects noticeably north and south of nave
and chancel; and Christon in Somerset, are further instances of the
plan. The tower between nave and chancel, without transepts, is seldom
found in an apsidal plan. It occurs at Newhaven in Sussex, where there
is a small apse. Here the plan is virtually that of some small parish
churches in Normandy, such as Yainville, near Jumieges. The majority of
such plans in England, however, end in a rectangular chancel. Precedent
for the plan is, as we have seen, to be found in Saxon churches. At St
Pancras, Canterbury, we have noticed the westward prolongation of the
apse: at Brixworth a definite presbytery or quire space was planned, on
a large scale, between apse and nave. In later Saxon churches, where the
chancel was rectangular, a tower, with or without transeptal chapels,
was sometimes built between nave and chancel; and here, although
externally the division was not always clearly marked, an internal quire
space was divided off from the nave by the western arch of the tower.
The aisleless plan, therefore, with a tower above the quire, and a
rectangular chancel, points to a development along old-fashioned lines,
even in churches in which, as at Iffley, the builders have acquired
great skill in expressing themselves in Norman terms. In certain
districts, as in Gloucestershire, this plan was a favourite one. Even in
the fourteenth century, Leckhampton church, near Cheltenham, was rebuilt
in faithful adherence to this tradition. Here the tower is narrower than
the small chancel, and the nave has a south aisle.

[Illustration: Fig. 7. Two aisleless plans with central tower: (1) tower
between nave and chancel; (2) tower over crossing of transepts with nave
and chancel.]

Sec. 35. In the cases of Dover, Breamore, Stow, and Norton, we have watched
the gradua