[Footnote 5: At the last restoration the height was reduced to 298 feet.]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF ST. MICHAEL'S FROM THE WEST.]
From within the door by which the church is usually entered, that near the south-west angle, we obtain an overpowering impression of the special characteristic of the interior, its spaciousness, for it is here more than 100 feet wide and the east window is nearly 240 feet distant.
The =nave=, which is 37 feet 6 inches wide in the clear, is wider than that of many cathedrals, and much exceeds that of most parish churches, the widest (Worstead) given in Brandon's "Parish Churches" being 29 feet. Boston alone exceeds it by about 3 feet. While the ordinary aisle width ranges from 10 to 14 feet, the north aisle here is 23 feet, the outer north and the south being each 17 feet. The total internal length is 265 feet, exclusive of the sacristy; Boston, the only larger one, being 284 feet, while very few exceed 200 feet, and most are far smaller. The greatest internal width is 120 feet; Manchester, a double-aisled collegiate church, is about the same, and York Minster is 106 feet. Finally, the area is about 22,800 square feet, probably greater than that of any other English parish church, indeed, St. Nicholas, Yarmouth, is the only one which pretends to rivalry in this respect. Size is, of course, only one element in the impressiveness of a building, and may even be neutralized by the treatment (as, for instance, in the Duomo of Florence and St. Peter's, Rome, by increasing the size of its parts rather than multiplying them), but these few comparisons will help the visitor to judge how far this element colours his appreciation of the whole. As an illustration of mediæval methods of church building, it is interesting to trace the growth of the structure with the help of the few historical notices already given and the evidence of the building itself. The subject is full of difficulties, and the writer does not hope to solve them conclusively, but to put before the reader the main points which have to be considered before forming a judgement.
Both historic and structural evidence agree that there was an existing smaller church when the tower was built in the last quarter of the fourteenth century, that the choir and apse were either contemporary, or begun a few years earlier, and that the nave was built between 1434 and 1450. The south porch and the west crypt (beneath the original Lady Chapel) are almost contemporary (p. 34), belonging to the beginning of the fourteenth century. Now the axis of the tower is parallel to the axis and walls of the nave, while the centre line of the choir is deflected towards the north about 7°. Notwithstanding this, however, owing to the tower not being central with the nave, the axis of the choir, if prolonged, runs directly to the centre of the tower arch, as may easily be seen by anyone who stands there and looks along the ridge of the choir roof. (_See_ dotted line on Plan.)