Early developments

Of course, when the Christian Faith was first brought to this country, there were no churches.  When the missionaries came to a village, they used to set up a wooden cross in a prominent, open place and there they preached the Faith in the open air.  Later, in order to mark the exact spot, it was the custom to erect a stone cross.  Some of these preaching crosses still survive. (1)

The first churches were made of wattles and mud.  Then they were replaced by much stouter buildings with walls of split tree trunks, and thatched roofs.  In Saxon times stone churches began to be built, but they were quite small.  What made an enormous difference over the whole country was the Norman Conquest.  The Normans were very good at building, and the old wooden churches were gradually pulled down and new stone ones put up instead on the same spot.  These were generally paid for by a local landowner.

As the populations of the parishes grew, so many of the churches were enlarged.  The easiest way to do this was to add aisles to the nave.  That is to say, they knocked down the walls of the part of the church which the congregation occupied, and put up instead an arcade of pillars and arches to support the roof.  Then beyond the arcade they built new outside walls and roofed over the extra space, making it into what is called an aisle, from the Latin ala, a wing.

At first the windows were kept fairly small in order not to weaken the walls.  But gradually, as the builders became more expert, they were able to put in larger and larger windows until in the 14th and 15th centuries almost the whole wall of a church might consist of glass panels.

Thus, as the years passed, the churches were altered and improved so that they might be as fine and as beautiful as possible, because all the time they were built for God.  The people gave of their best because only the best is good enough for God.