Thomas II., archbishop of York from 1109 to 1114. The eastern arm was
terminated by a rectangular chancel, while the aisles ended in apses,
the walls of which were rounded externally as well as internally.
Traces alone remain of this interesting plan.[7] The transepts of the
twelfth-century church remain, though the apsidal chapels to the east
of them have gone: the whole of the nave and south porch, the central
tower, and two western towers form one work with the transepts. The
general character of this work is of a rather late Romanesque type.
The gables of the transepts are filled with a relieved honeycomb
pattern which bears some affinity to that used in the gables abutting
on the lower stages of the western towers at Lincoln. The date of the
Lincoln work has been supposed to lie between 1123 and 1148, but is
very probably even later than the second date. The rich string-course
of chevron ornament which, in spite of some mutilation, is still
continued round the nave and transepts of Southwell at the level of
the sills of the aisle windows, and is raised to form the segmental
head of the doorway in the south transept, is another feature which
points to the late completion of the western part of the church. The
northern and western doorways of the nave, the first of five, the
second of four shafted orders, in addition to the continuous inner
order of rows of chevrons, have a refinement of detail which suggests
a date not earlier than 1150. In the side walls of the north porch,
the lower stage of the central tower, and the top stage but one of
the north-west tower, are arcades of intersecting rounded arches. In
the south-west tower, however, the arcade in the top stage but one
consists of pointed arches. The probability is that the work was slowly
achieved, and was not finished until the third quarter of the twelfth
century. The earliest portion appears to be the great arches beneath
the central tower, with their elaborate “double-cone” ornament, which
is really a highly-developed variety of the twisted-cable sculpture,
such as we have noticed on the base at Blyth.[8] The main arcades of
the nave were then probably built westward as an abutment to these
arches. The arcades are of seven bays up to the eastern piers of the
towers. The arches have a curve of rather less than a semicircle:
they are framed by a band of double-billet ornament beneath a small
roll: they have a deep outer order with an edge-roll, and an inner
order with two thick soffit rolls. They are divided by low and massive
cylindrical columns, the capitals of which are cylinders of larger
diameter, carved with scalloping and other ornament. This carving is
incised, and little relief is given to the scalloping. The work of the
triforium, clerestory, and aisles appears to have followed the building
of the main arcades.[9] The triforium, as at Blyth, has a single bold
opening in each bay. The moulding of the arches is very similar to that
of the arches below, but the outer band of ornament is richer. The
piers dividing them are square in section, and are recessed with an
angle shaft and soffit shaft, each with scalloped capitals to bear the
orders of the arches. The inner faces of the arches and jambs towards
the triforium passage are left unmoulded. The clerestory consists of
a circular opening in each bay, framed on the outside by a continuous
roll moulding. There is a barrel-vaulted clerestory passage, which
opens towards the nave by a plain rounded arch with soffit shafts in
each bay. No vaulting shafts were ever planned: the elevation of the
nave externally is rather flat and plain, but a strong horizontal
line is given by the triforium string, and the effect of light and
shade caused by the clerestory openings is one of the most beautiful
features of this noble church. It was originally intended to introduce
sub-arches into the triforium openings, on the plan adopted at Romsey:
the preparations for this subdivision remain, but it was never carried
out.
The aisles are vaulted in quadripartite compartments, with massive
diagonal ribs, square in section, with thick edge rolls, and a double
bead on the soffit. The centre of the diagonals is considerably below
their springing, with a fatal result to the artistic effect of their
curve. No special provision is made for their reception either on the
side of the main arcades or that of the aisle wall: their outward
pressure, which is considerable, is met by shallow pilaster buttresses,
which serve as thickening to the wall at the necessary points. The
north porch, which has a solar or upper chamber, is barrel-vaulted. The
rough rubble vault, denuded of its plaster covering, forms a strange
contrast to the richness of the north doorway and the intersecting
arcades of the side walls. Although, as already said, all this work,
and the north porch most of all, belongs to an advanced period of the
twelfth century, the actual plan, with the two rather slender western
towers, may probably be assigned to the time when the rebuilding of the
church was first projected by Norman builders. The two western towers
planned at Melbourne (probably after 1133) and Bakewell in Derbyshire,
at once recall on plan the towers of Southwell, and are less likely
to have suggested them than to have been suggested by them. There is
little doubt that the two towers of Worksop priory church bear witness
to the influence of Southwell, while the scheme of the elevation of the
nave there was derived from Blyth and Southwell, and expressed in later
terms.
The vaulted crypt which remains beneath the chancel of Newark church
has been curtailed of its full proportions, but is a good example of
the successful ribbed vaulting of a series of narrow oblong bays, the
transverse arch between each bay being omitted, as in the alternate
bays at Durham. Among the parish churches of the county there are
few instances of unmixed Romanesque work of post-Conquest date.
Littleborough and Sookholme are aisleless chapels with rectangular
chancels, and to these the greater part of the fabric at Halam
may be added. East and West Leake keep enough of their possibly
eleventh-century structure to enable us to realise their original
appearance; but both have undergone the process of the enlargement of
the chancel and the addition of a south aisle, and at East Leake the
tower is of the thirteenth century. Early towers with plain details,
as at Laneham and Mansfield, are not uncommon: that at Plumtree is
a case in which some slight architectural enrichment has been given
to a simple design. Such towers, the unbuttressed construction of
which, as at East Leake, survives into the thirteenth century, seem
to be the work of local masons on whom the methods of the Norman
builders have made comparatively little impression. On the other
hand, the distinctive ornamentation of Norman churches has left its
mark on chancel arches like those of Littleborough and Harworth,
and on a considerable number of doorways. The carved tympana of the
doorways of Hoveringham and Everton may be assigned to the early part
of the twelfth century. The tympanum, now built into the west wall
of the south transept at Southwell, is earlier in date. Its rude
and angular figure sculpture has been cited with some probability
as Saxon, but has much in common with other late eleventh- and even
twelfth-century sculpture, in which possible Scandinavian influence
may be detected. Work of a similar school may be seen in the carved
figures, representing nine of the months of the year, which have been
built into the tower at Calverton: these seem to have been the carved
_voussoirs_ of the doorway of the eleventh-century church, of
which the chancel arch remains. The influence of Yorkshire building on
Nottinghamshire was always strong, and we cannot expect to find in the
early work of the district the refined carving of the southern schools
of masons. Among doorways of a later date, the south doorway and the
outer doorway of the north porch at Balderton stand easily first: these
have rich and deeply-cut bands of chevron ornamentation.[10]
[Illustration: SOUTH SCARLE. NAVE NORTH ARCADE.]
Arcades of twelfth-century work are very few in number: there are no
cases among the parish churches where both arcades are of this date.
At Thoroton, South Collingham, and South Searle the north aisle was
added before the transition to Gothic had thoroughly set in; and the
two last examples are peculiarly instructive. In either case the arcade
is of uncommon beauty. At South Collingham it is of distinctly late
Romanesque character. The capitals are scalloped, the arches have
heavy double soffit rolls, the outer order has a band of chevron both
on the wall and soffit planes, and each arch has a hood of “nebule”
ornament, which recalls the form of the corbel table of the nave at
Southwell. Large grotesque heads occur at the junction of the hoods.
The date of the work is certainly earlier than 1150. The north arcade
at South Scarle belongs to the third quarter of the century. The
arches are rounded and of two orders. The inner order is ornamented
with bands of deeply moulded lozenges, formed by opposed rows of
chevrons, set both on the wall and soffit planes, the edge between
the points of contact of the lozenges being left square. The outer
order has a slender edge-roll: on both planes are bands of lozenges,
longer and narrower than those of the inner order, with a roll moulding
running through and bisecting each lozenge. The hoods are composed of
a double band of chevron, arranged on both planes, the edge, as in
the inner order, being left square. At the meeting of the hoods are
heads. The adjacent outer orders intersect and are combined with rare
skill. The column dividing the arches is cylindrical: the capital has
a heavy square abacus with a long vertical hollow, and the bell has a
simple band of deeply undercut foliage with angle crockets. The whole
design could hardly be surpassed in any English parish church of the
period. It is not fanciful to suggest that the carving of both planes
throughout the arch and hood was inspired by the outer order at South
Collingham, where the chevrons are arranged alternately, so as to
interlock, and no straight edge is left. But the work at South Searle
is of a superior delicacy of execution: in the arches the thick convex
curves of Romanesque work give place to the graceful undercutting of
Gothic sculpture, and in the foliage of the capitals Romanesque methods
have been entirely left behind.
South Searle is, in fact, an early example of the transition which
marks the end of the twelfth century. Other arcades of the period,
belonging to the last quarter of the twelfth century, and showing
sculptured foliage or figures, occur at Caunton and Attenborough. The
date of the work at Attenborough, however, may be called in question,
as it has features which indicate that it has been manipulated by
clever sculptors of a much later era. Plain arcades with rounded
arches, but otherwise Gothic in character, such as are common in
Yorkshire, are those of Sturton-le-Steeple. The present writer, who
has a clear recollection of the church as it was, saw it in its
ruined state after the fire of 1901, and has visited it since its
reconstruction, can testify to the substantial accuracy with which
the rebuilding has been carried out. An important piece of work was
begun towards the end of the twelfth century at Newark, of which the
evidence remains in the clustered piers, with plain capitals and square
abaci, intended, with a rather inadequate sense of the weight to be
laid on them, to support a central tower. The great achievement of
transitional work in Nottinghamshire, however, was the nave of Worksop
priory church, the date of which is about 1175. As has been said, the
Worksop builders owed something to Southwell, and their design at once
recalls, in its external appearance and proportions, that which had
been used at Southwell. The details are much simplified, as may be seen
by comparing the elevation of the Worksop with that of the Southwell
towers; and the large bull’s-eye windows of the clerestory at Southwell
are not repeated at Worksop. Internally, the proportions are those of
Blyth and Southwell--the low arch on the ground-floor in each bay, the
wide single opening of the triforium above, the low clerestory. From a
structural point of view, there is no very great advance upon Southwell
in lightness of construction. The columns, alternately cylindrical and
octagonal, are still squat and massive: strength of walls is still the
ruling principle with the builders. But the approach to Gothic work is
shown in the growing delicacy of detail, in slenderness of undercut
moulding, in the use of the pointed arch, where it is not necessitated
by vaulting, and in the abandonment of intricate twelfth-century
ornament for carefully sculptured mouldings and for the conventional
variety of carved foliage.
The district near the Trent, in the wapentakes of Bassetlaw and
Newark, provides a group of village churches which contain early
thirteenth-century work of rare excellence. North Collingham,
Marnham, Laneham, South Leverton, Beckingham, Misterton, and Hayton,
are the members of this group. The treatment of the work is by no
means identical in all these cases. At Laneham the nave arches
have simple mouldings of very early thirteenth-century type, cut
in rectangular planes, and rest upon clustered columns, the shafts
of which are engaged in a rather thick central shaft. The same
treatment of arch-mouldings may be seen at Ordsall, near Retford. At
North Collingham, South Leverton, and Marnham, sculptured foliage is
employed in the capitals of the nave arcade. These three churches
differ from each other in the design of their arches and columns, and
the true parentage of North Collingham, a worthy neighbour to South
Collingham, is not easy to decide. But the design of tail-shafted
columns and foliated capitals at South Leverton seems to be closely
allied to the early thirteenth-century work at St. Mary-le-Wigford
and St. Peter-at-Gowts in Lincoln; while the low columns and graceful
foliage at Marnham belong to the same family as much thirteenth-century
architecture in and round Lincoln--St. Benedict’s at Lincoln,
Nettleham, and Waddington, are cases in point. It is easy to understand
that Lincoln may have had a great architectural influence on a church
like South Leverton, which was one of the churches appropriated to the
dean of Lincoln, and forming part of his “parsonage.”
The chapter of Lincoln, as has been said, possessed much property
and several churches in Newark wapentake: the whole district, then,
including churches, like Marnham,[11] which had no direct connection
with Lincoln, might very well be brought within the sphere of the
artistic influence of Lincoln. North Collingham, the advowson of
which belonged to the abbey of Peterborough,[12] was well within the
possible range of Lincoln influence. Misterton, on the other hand,
lay outside the district to which Lincoln craftsmen were most likely
to resort. The church itself belonged to the dean and chapter of
York, who possessed property all round it; while five churches in
the neighbourhood, East Retford, Clarborough, Everton, Hayton, and
Sutton-cum-Lound with Scrooby, belonged to the collegiate chapel of St.
Mary and the Holy Angels at York. In later days, Yorkshire influence
was paramount in the buildings of the district; the tower of Haxey in
Lincolnshire, and the tower of Gainsborough, seem to have been built
by masons of the Yorkshire school. It has been explained that the
possession of a church by monastic or clerical owners did not imply
that the impropriators would do much for the fabric; and the examples
just cited show for how little, in an architectural estimate, the
actual owners of the church may count. Save only Balderton and South
Leverton, those churches, in the neighbourhood of the Trent, which
belonged to the dean and chapter of Lincoln, are not remarkable for
their beauty, or for any traces of the handiwork of Lincoln masons in
them. But it might well happen that, in the case of South Leverton,
Lincoln masons were employed, and their work might bear fruit in
neighbouring parishes.
The work of Lincoln masons is certainly apparent in the tower of Newark
church, begun during the second quarter of the thirteenth century. We
have seen that this church was the property of the Gilbertine priory of
St. Katherine without Lincoln. The canons of St. Katherine’s, however,
would be under no obligation to supply the church with a tower. On the
other hand, the bishop of Lincoln, as lord of Newark, would have a
direct responsibility, and would probably be the largest contributor
to the new work. What was more natural than that masons, whose methods
had been learned at Lincoln, should be employed at Newark? As a matter
of fact, the Lincoln influence is clearly declared, not only in the
foliated capitals of the western doorway, but also in the “smocking”
pattern which is used in the upper part of the thirteenth-century
work. This method of breaking up a flat surface, by a series of
diagonal fillets crossing and recrossing each other, into a chequered
surface of sunken lozenges, is a peculiar feature of the architectural
work done at Lincoln minster in the times of Bishop Grosseteste
(1235–54). It was employed again, with a little variation, towards the
end of the century in the tower of Grantham, which owes much to the
example of Newark.
The tower of Newark was the beginning of a great rebuilding, which
gives us the most interesting development of plan in Nottinghamshire.
It was planned, like most western towers, to stand free, on three
sides, of the west end of the church. After the lowest stage had been
built, however, arches were pierced in the north and south walls, so
as to open into aisles extended westwards to a level with the west
wall of the tower. This arrangement, as Sir Gilbert Scott suggested
with much probability, may have been derived directly from Tickhill
in south Yorkshire, where the tower was engaged within aisles at the
close of the twelfth century. The plan had been used in Yorkshire at
an earlier date.[13] There can be no question as to the influence of
this arrangement at Newark upon the plan of the tower and aisles at
Grantham some fifty years later. Grantham, however, completed its tower
and spire within a few years of the conception of the borrowed design.
Newark had to wait for the completion of its tower and spire until the
fourteenth century; and the thirteenth-century lower stages, as we see
them now, are an isolated fragment, crowned and flanked by work of a
later period.
The three western bays, which are all that remain, of the priory
church of Thurgarton, belong to the northern school of early Gothic.
The detail is severely simple, and the somewhat heavy clustered piers
recall those of the church of Great Grimsby in Lincolnshire, which bear
a near relationship to the early thirteenth-century work at Hedon
in the East Riding. The west front and north tower are practically a
translation into a more advanced type of Gothic of the west front and
south tower of the late twelfth-century priory church of Malton. The
work appears to belong to the first quarter of the thirteenth century:
the buttresses of the tower are mere pilasters, finished off with
gable heads above the belfry string. It is impossible to speak too
warmly of the noble simplicity of the design, which is very moderate
in elevation. A great west doorway, recessed in five orders, with
shafted jambs, occupies nearly half the height of the west front. The
upper half, which forms with its gable an equilateral triangle, is
occupied by a row of lancets, decreasing in height from the centre on
each side: the three central lancets are pierced. The north tower is
divided by string courses into five stages: the lowest stage is again
divided into two parts, the lower of which is pierced in the west face
by another moulded and shafted doorway. Great ingenuity is shown in the
care with which the surface of the tower and buttresses is broken up by
blind arcades of lancets, which are applied at points where emphasis
is really needed, and are not used indiscriminately. This is specially
remarkable in the belfry stage, the centre of which in each face is
occupied by two tall lancet openings. The unpierced wall on either
side of these is divided into two halves by a bold string course; but,
while the upper half is recessed with lancet niches, the lower half
is left blank, and is broken only on the west face by the projection
of the buttress gables. Probably no better instance could be found of
the dignity and variety of interest which thirteenth-century builders
contrived to create out of their stock of simple material. Every detail
is taken carefully into account, but none is so accentuated as to
lessen the harmony of the main design.
[Illustration: SOUTHWELL MINSTER. EAST END.]
[Illustration: SOUTHWELL MINSTER. CAPITAL IN THE CHAPTER
HOUSE.]