The greatest churches which the Normans planned were on such a scale that they could not be finished in the lives of their designers. The work was carried on more or less continuously by the builders and architects who came after them. But, as time went on, various improvements were made in the art of building, and new fashions came into being, and the original plans had often to be altered to meet the growing needs of the day, or to allow the newest features of style to be introduced.

The interior of S. John's Church, Chester, will show you some of the changes of style which were taking place in the early part of the thirteenth century. The two rows of pointed arches over the circular headed arches of the nave tell us that by the time the massive Norman piers and arches were finished, an entirely different form of arch was coming into fashion.

The pointed arch was first used when Norman and Saxon had settled down peaceably side by side. From the fusing of the two nations, the English people grew in strength and power. Norman baron and Saxon peasant had combined to wrest from a wicked king the Great Charter of freedom for the English people. Hence the new style is appropriately called Early English.

The work of church building had often been interrupted. During the civil war of Stephen's reign, the building of churches was almost at a standstill; the Crusades, by drawing large numbers of people from the country, also checked the progress of the work. The raids of the Welsh often destroyed a half-built Cheshire church. But from the time of Magna Charta the erection of sacred buildings went forward apace, and was continued with even greater zeal and activity through the long reign of Henry the Third.

The pointed arch was the principal feature of the new style, which is, therefore, sometimes called the Pointed style. But we must look carefully at the shape and details before we can be quite sure that an arch belongs to this period of building.

The arch must be tall and narrow, the columns on which they rest, round and slender, often grouped together in clusters of three or more. Often the columns consist of slender shafts united on one base and under one capital. The mouldings of the arch, base and capital must be deeply cut and grooved. The pointed arches of S. John's have all these characteristic features. The lower of the two rows of pointed arches is called the triforium or blind story, that is, without windows, for it is built within the slope of the roof over the side aisles of the church. The upper row is the clerestory, containing many window lights. A triforium is only to be seen in the very largest churches. In the ruined portion of S. John's you may see round and pointed arches side by side.

The arches of the nave at Prestbury belong to this period. The columns are very much more slender than the massive columns of S. John's. You will notice that the capital of one of the columns is covered with carved foliage which could only have been done with a chisel. Deep under-cutting is a feature of the Early English style, and shows that the English masons had improved greatly in their skill.

Early English windows, like the arches, are long, narrow, and pointed. From their shape they are called lancets. Sometimes two or more lancets are grouped together side by side under a single 'dripstone' or hood. At the east end of the Chapter-house at Chester is a window consisting of five lancets.

Several portions of Chester Cathedral, or rather the Abbey of S. Werburgh as it was still called, were built during this period. In the north aisle of the choir you may see the point where we pass from the massive Norman masonry to the lighter and more graceful Early English. The piscina or basin built in the wall is the place where you must look for the change.

At the end of the twelfth century the church of Hugh Lupus was already in ruins. Earl Randle was in the Holy Land, and, during his absence, the Welsh were more than usually troublesome. In the early years of the thirteenth century large sums of money were given to the abbey, and the abbots began building in the new style. When Hugh Grylle was abbot, the Chapter-house, in which the business of the abbey was transacted, was built. The number of monks also increased to such an extent that a new and larger refectory was needed.

This refectory and the vestibule or entrance hall leading to it contain the most beautiful examples of Early English work to be found in Cheshire, and boys and girls who live in or near Chester should study them carefully. In the refectory is the stone pulpit referred to in a previous chapter, with a staircase and arcade of Early English arches leading to it. The wall above the arches is pierced with a row of 'quatrefoil' openings, with deeply cut mouldings.

In the hollows of the Early English mouldings we sometimes see an ornament pointed like a dog's tooth. You will see it in the moulding round a circular opening over the doorway of the vestibule in the cloisters of the Cathedral. Another ornament which the thirteenth-century masons invented and put into their work was the 'cusp', a projection made by the meeting of two curves placed end to end. If you put two cusps into the head of a pointed arch you will find that you have made a trefoil-headed arch. The triforium arches in the choir of the cathedral are all of this description. Quatrefoils are made by arranging four cusps within a circle.

Towards the end of the thirteenth century, Abbot Simon of Whitchurch built the Lady Chapel east of the choir. The windows of this chapel are all lancets, those at the side being arranged in groups of three, while the east window contains five lights. The Lady Chapel looks very new now. It has, in fact, been almost entirely rebuilt since Abbot Simon's day. The mediaeval builders of Cheshire did not select their building-stone very carefully. You will see from the cloisters how the red sandstone has weathered and crumbled to ruin.

The walls of Early English buildings were not so thick as those built by the Normans, and required to be supported on the exterior by buttresses which projected further from the walls than the flat Norman buttresses. You will find Early English buttresses at Audlem and Prestbury.

Many houses in Chester are built over crypts or underground cellars, which were made during the reign of Henry the Third, and consequently show some of the features we have been describing. The oldest of these crypts is under a shop in Bridge Street. It is lighted by a triple lancet window having deep splays. The door of the staircase leading to it has a trefoiled head, and the vaulted stone roof is groined and ribbed like the roof of the cloisters of the cathedral. The roofs of Early English churches were groined in the same way, but with wood instead of stone.

Many Cheshire churches were, no doubt, rebuilt or repaired in the new style. At Bruera there is a pointed doorway under a semicircular arch. Bruera was one of the many churches bestowed on the Abbey of S. Werburgh by Norman lords. A grant of a manor or a church was often made when a baron or some member of his family entered the abbey as a monk of the brotherhood. Their descendants did not always approve of these gifts. In the Chronicle of S. Werburgh, we read that in 1258 Roger de Montalt, Chief Justice of Chester, tried to recover the churches of Bruera, Coddington, and Neston, which the lord of Montalt had given to the abbey in the days of Earl Hugh. Roger entered Neston Church with a body of armed men, and turned out the monks who had been sent from the abbey to perform the services, and gave the living to his nephew Ralph. The Chronicle speaks of the misfortunes that befell Roger as a warning to other would-be robbers of the Church. His eldest son died within fifteen days, and Roger himself 'died in poverty within two years, the common people being ignorant of the place of his burial'.