erestory, flat outer roofs and tall western Tower, a
noble thing significant of our civilisation and the Faith out of which
it has come.

Within, one finds a church like and yet unlike that at Ashford. Nave
and chancel are of the same width, and the arcades run from end to end
of the church really without a break, though half way a wall, borne by
three arches, crosses the church separating the chancel and its
chapels from the nave. The central arch of the three is of course the
chancel arch, but the wall it bears does not reach to the roof so that
the nave, clerestory and roof are seen running on beyond it. All this
is curious rather than lovely, but like every other strangeness in
England of my heart, it is to be explained by the long, long history
of things still--Deo gratias--remaining to us, so that when I said
that our buildings were growths rather than works of art I spoke
truth.

The church of St Mary of Great Chart is not mentioned in the Domesday
Survey, but that a church existed here in the twelfth century is
certain, for even in the present building we have evidences of Norman
work, for instance in the walling of the south chapel, and in the
vestry doorway. According to the Rev. G.M. Livett, [Footnote: K.A.S.
26.] the Norman nave was as long as that we have, which is built in
all probability on its foundation. The aisleless Norman church,
however, had a central tower to the east of the present chancel arch
and transepts, as well as a chancel. This church appears to have stood
till the fourteenth century, when it was entirely rebuilt and
reclaimed, and all the lower part of the present church built, to be
heightened and lengthened at the end of the fifteenth century when the
clerestory and the chancel arcade were built, a new aisle wall set up
on the north and the south aisle raised, the rood loft built or
rebuilt.

We are reminded of all this history by the fine altar tomb in the
north chapel where lie William Goldwell and Alice his wife (d. 1485).
Their son James was Vicar of Great Chart in 1458, and became Bishop of
Norwich in 1472, when he obtained from the Pope "an indulgence in aid
of the restoration of Great Chart church which had been damaged by
fire." Here is the cause and the source of the fifteenth century
alterations and the church we see. The brasses in the church are also
interesting. Many of them commemorate the Tokes of Godinton, who
founded the almshouse in the village, which, rebuilt more