Architectural Notes on the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Swanscombe

244 ARCHITECTURAL NOTES ON THE CHURCH OE windows that lit this small square chancel can be clearly seen : half the head of a window on the north side, just to the west of the organ, and opposite, on the south wall, a nearly complete, though blocked, window of similar character. These can likewise be traced on the exterior waUs, but in neither case are the heads preserved. Being in the middle of the N. and S. walls, these windows confirm the length of the tweUth century chancel. The twelfth century chancel arch has gone but it was obviously flanked on either side by semicircular-headed recesses, similar to those, for instance, at Dymchurch, or, though far less ornamental, at Barfreston. These would probably contain altars. (c) The thirteenth century saw the enlargement of the church by the addition of narrow aisles north and south, necessitating the introduction of arcades in place of the sohd waU. The chancel was likewise extended eastward (see plan), and lancet windows, two on each side, took the place of the single round-headed lights of Norman times. The aisles were covered by a low lean-to roof, above which was a range of clerestory windows, Ughting the nave. Owing to subsequent changes in the height of the aisle roofs, these windows are now invisible from without, though remaining intact within, above the nave arcades. The arcades are unmolded save for a heavy roU on each arris, and are carried on two free piers and two corbels. The two western columns have plain molded caps to their somewhat massive circular shafts, the caps of the other pair being further ornamented by the addition of a whorl of broad ribbed leaves whose tips end in primitive volutes. (d) The chancel was further extended in the fourteenth century, a distinct change in the character of the walling being discernible some eight feet from the east end, but beyond this there were no further developments in the plan of the church, which has come down from the thirteenth century practicaUy unaltered, though there were naturaUy structural alterations. The most important of these was the rebuUding of the chancel arch (in the fourteenth century) on a rather larger scale, and the smaU narrow lancets were