The century, that opened with war and bloodshed, closed in peace such as Cheshire had hardly ever before experienced.
Many of the largest and finest churches in Cheshire were built during the Wars of the Roses, and in the reigns of the early Tudors. This fact shows us more than anything else perhaps that the wars did not greatly interfere with the progress and prosperity of the inhabitants of Cheshire. During this period the churches of Mottram, Malpas, Great Budworth, Nantwich, Astbury, Grappenhall, Tarvin, Bunbury, Wilmslow, Witton, Gawsworth, and many others were built or completed.
[Illustration: ASTBURY, WEST FRONT. PERPENDICULAR]
If you study any of these churches carefully you will see that the style was once again changing. Probably the first thing you will note will be the change in the patterns of the windows. The mullions which divide the lights are carried right up to the crown of the windows instead of branching off to right or left in flowing curves. This is the chief feature from which the new style has received the name of Perpendicular.
The Perpendicular builders of the latter half of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth centuries found their windows growing to such a size that they had to strengthen them with cross-bars called transoms. Thus the windows, as in the west front of Astbury and the south transept of Chester Cathedral, for instance, present the appearance of a number of rectangles placed side by side and piled one above another. The crown of the windows are also now flattened until they hardly appear to be pointed at all.
The clerestories of the Perpendicular churches were filled with rows of windows until the whole length of the wall was almost continuous glass, as at Malpas and Astbury. When Bibles and Church services began to be printed more light was needed, for people went to church to read as well as to listen.
The doorways, like the windows, have changed with the times. The heads are flattened and covered with a square moulded hood. The corner spaces between the arch and the hood are called spandrels, and are generally filled in with carved foliage or shields. At the sides are often niches for the images of saints, or moulded panels. The door of the Rivers Chapel at Macclesfield is a beautiful specimen of Perpendicular architecture.
