iations of the aisleless plan, which have been indicated,
are all of which it is capable. Naturally, after the twelfth century,
many aisleless churches were still built, and are common in country
districts. In their humblest form we find them in the small churches of
highland regions, the masonry of which is so rough that their date is
often a matter of doubt. Sometimes they have been rebuilt, with a
lengthened chancel, as at West Heslerton, near Scarborough. In many
instances, we have aisleless country churches rebuilt in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, with western towers. This, uncommon in no part
of England, is especially common in Norfolk and Suffolk; and some of
these churches, like Ranworth in Norfolk, have much dignity and
spaciousness of proportion. In some late Gothic churches the structural
division between nave and chancel is left out, and the building has been
deliberately planned as a spacious aisleless rectangle, of which the
eastern bay is allotted to the chancel. This happens at Temple Balsall
in Warwickshire and the chapel of South Skirlaugh in Yorkshire.
Aisleless plans with one or two transeptal chapels are to be found all
through the middle ages: Acton Burnell represents a thoroughly
symmetrical employment of this type. On the other hand, aisleless
cruciform plans with central towers are by no means common after the
twelfth century. Potterne is a perfect development of this plan in the
thirteenth century. There is a complete aisleless cruciform plan at
Othery, near Bridgwater, where the tall central tower is quite out of
proportion to the humble church above which it rises, and has
necessitated substantial outer buttressing. Here probably the church was
rebuilt on earlier foundations, transepts being possibly added. In many
instances an aisleless cruciform church seems to have been rebuilt on
the lines of a complete Norman plan. This was with little doubt the case
at Acaster Malbis, near York, where the church is planned with direct
relation to the central space, but without a tower; and the foundations
of earlier walls can be traced all round the building, at the foot of
the walls built in the fourteenth century. The absence of the tower is
an anomaly, but is one method of solving the problem of the connexion
between nave and chancel in the cruciform plan.

Sec. 40. Thus, if here and there we can detect novelties which make for
improvements upon the aisleless plan, the plan itself is subject