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- 1. St John the Baptist, Chester, Cheshire, England
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Originally collegiate church, now parish church The Romanesque church was a cruciform building with an aisled nave with triforium and clerestorey; N and S transepts and an aisled eastern arm with a gallery rather than a triforium. Of the nave, the four eastern bays and the beginning of a fifth survive. In the fifth bay was a 13thc. north doorway under a porch, and west of the sixth stood the façade. There is no evidence for the original form of this beyond the ruinous lower part of a NW tower. This tower collapsed partially in 1572 and more drastically in 1574, destroying the western bays of the nave, and was rebuilt on a magnificent scale. Until 1881 it was reportedly the glory of the exterior and a notable Chester landmark, but in that year, while long-overdue repairs were taking place, it collapsed again, destroying the Early English north porch, which was rebuilt by J. Douglas in 1881-82. The eastern arm of the church was originally aisled and of five straight bays, but now the entire north aisle has been removed (except for its eastern chapel; see below). Of the main vessel and south aisle only a single bay survives within the building, which terminates in a straight wall. The remainder of the eastern arm was abandoned in 1547, when the King's Commissioners decided that the nave alone was sufficient for the parish, and that the lead on the choir roof along with the metal of four of the church's five bells should be removed and sold. To the east, outside the building, parts of the S choir aisle wall still stand, along with what remains of the east chapels. Originally the main vessel terminated in a deep apsidal chapel, and the aisles in shallower ones. All three chapels were remodelled and enlarged in the later middle ages, but the 12thc. wall containing their entrance arches still stands. This is in a disastrously eroded condition, which should be borne in mind while reading the descriptions of its elements in this site report.
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