A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



The earliest parts of the building are the responds 

 of the arch to the south transept in St. Katherine's 

 Chapel, which are of 14th-century date, and may 

 belong to the year 1368, when the chapel was 

 founded. These form the only remaining fragment 

 of a church which probably consisted of a chancel with 

 north chapel and nave with south aisle, to which this 

 chantry was added. Owing to the rebuilding of 

 1862-3 at the east end evidence of the extent of this 

 early church is wanting, but both the chancel and nave 

 seem to have been of the same length as at present, 

 though of less width. The east wall of the north 

 chapel, however, appears to have been standing up to 

 1 86 1 in a line with the east wall of the chancel, and 

 contained a good 14th-century window, of which 

 the present window in the same position is said to 



aisle was added or reconstructed. The Jesus altar stood 

 here. This aisle was lighted at its west end by a three- 

 light window with cinquefoiled heads under a four- 

 centred arch, the remains of which may still be seen 

 blocked up on the outside. Later in the same century, 

 probably about 1450, when William and Lawrence 

 Booth founded (or refounded) a second chantry of St. 

 Katherine, the south aisle seems to have been rebuilt 

 further southward. The evidence of the old plinth, now 

 restored, showed it to be a later addition, and it is likely 

 that the entrance to St. Katherine's Chapel was at this 

 time taken down and reconstructed in its present posi- 

 tion. That the south aisle is earlier in date than the 

 16th-century rebuilding, which brought the church 

 to its present shape, is shown by the windows, whose 

 jambs are moulded, in contrast with the plain cham- 



^r 



century 

 15* - 

 !&!> 

 modern 



PLAN OF ECCLES CHURCH 



be a copy. 10 Whether this earlier church had a 

 north aisle it is impossible to say, and its south aisle 

 was most likely narrower than the present one, 

 though there is nothing actually to show that the arch 

 to the south transept is not in its original position. 

 If it is, the aisle must have been of almost equal 

 width to the nave, which is unlikely. There was 

 probably a west tower to the 14th-century church, 

 but no positive evidence of this remains, successive 

 rebuildings and restorations making it almost impos- 

 sible to say whether the lower portion of the present 

 tower is older than the upper part. Whatever the 

 original western termination may have been, however, 

 the tower was built, or rebuilt, centring with the 

 nave, probably in the beginning of the 1 5th century, 

 and at the same time, or shortly afterwards, the north 



fered jambs of the later work, and by the generally 

 better and more careful detail as shown in the 

 hood-moulds to the windows and in the buttresses, 

 which had cusped panelled fronts. In the rebuilding 

 of this wall much, if not all, of the old detail has 

 been lost, the middle buttress having disappeared, and 

 the diagonal one at the south-west having been re- 

 newed. 



The south aisle of the chancel, if it did not exist 

 before, must have been built some time in the i$th 

 century, and is probably the ' new chapel ' which was 

 built by Sir Geoffrey Massey, who died in 1457, having 

 founded a chantry at the Trinity altar there in 1453. 

 The old views of the church show the south chancel 

 aisle with a three-light 15th-century window similar 

 to that in the west end of the north aisle, together 



10 See Owen MSS. Manch. Reference Library. 



354 



