[Illustration: Fig. 7. Carlton-in-Lindrick, Notts.: west tower, of late Saxon type, with later additions.]
§ 30. The magnificent architectural development of the tower and spire, in which, as in perhaps no other part of the church, the individual characteristics of local schools of masoncraft can be traced, becomes noticeable in the thirteenth century, at a time when the use of the ground floor of the tower as the principal porch of the church had been discontinued. In the fen country round Wisbech and Spalding, a series of thirteenth century towers, covering the period from 1200 to 1280, bears witness to the work of a school of tower builders, hardly less distinguished than the great Somerset masons of later days, which probably derived its inspiration from the arcaded western tower of Ely cathedral. Elm, Leverington, Walsoken, West Walton, Tilney All Saints, Long Sutton, Gedney, and Whaplode, are the principal evidence of their work. Not all these towers are western, and four of the number, including Gedney, the belfry stage of which belongs to a later date, are without the spires which their builders doubtless intended; but all are instances of the treatment of the bell-tower as an independent architectural composition, quite irrespective of its part in the plan of the church. In the twelfth century, however, when the side doorway was superseding the tower porch, the western tower was by no means so handsome or invariable a feature as it became in later days. Many smaller churches were content with a bell-cot over the western gable. There are several excellent examples of stone bell-cots in Rutland. In Essex and other districts where good building timber was easily procured, it is not uncommon to find square towers of timber, with conical caps or even spires, above the western gable, often supported on an elaborate framework within the west end of the church. A few timber towers, like Margaretting in Essex, are built up against the old west end of the church.
§ 31. There can be no doubt that, in the earlier part of the middle ages, while the high pitched roof prevailed in the main body of the building, the spire was considered the proper termination of a tower. Its chief development naturally took place in districts where good roofing stone was plentiful; and the finest English spires, with a few exceptions, are to be found in south Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, and Rutland. In less favoured districts, timber spires, covered with lead or shingles, were placed upon towers. Many of these remain in Surrey and Sussex. The spire may be regarded as the natural development of the conical roofs with which the towers of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries were usually crowned--an invaluable, if exceptional, example of which remains at Sompting, near Worthing. These must generally have been of wood with leaden coverings. The earliest general development of the stone spire is probably to be traced to south Lincolnshire, where the low broach spires of Sleaford, Rauceby, Frampton, and a few other churches, appear to belong to the last years of the twelfth, or earliest years of the thirteenth century. The spire continued to be fashionable in this and the neighbouring districts, long after it had become unusual in other parts of England. Grantham spire exercised an enduring influence upon its neighbourhood. It was the model upon which the builders of the spire of Oakham endeavoured to improve, with less striving after height and more coherence of design. From Oakham was closely derived the tower of Exton in Rutland, where the builders raised their spire upon an octagonal base. The octagon at Exton was probably the parent of those octagons which, rising on the summit of towers, reach their climax in the lantern at Boston, and in the octagonal frame which surrounds the lower part of the spire at Patrington. Other details at Exton bore fruit in the spires of Oundle and Kettering. At the very end of the middle ages, the feeling for the spire in Lincolnshire was still so strong that the tower of Louth was designed for a spire in the middle of the fifteenth century, and the spire itself was brought to completion in 1515.