HOW OLD IS THE CHURCH?
The are big round arches in the Church. Arches that look like this were built by the Normans after they conquered England in 1066, although they didn't get around to building much until 1090. The Church was probably built around this time, which means it is very old!
About 100 years later, someone invented a way of making pointy arches. This style of arch is called Gothic. 100 years after this, someone managed to make patterns in the windows out of stone. These patterns are called tracery. Now people could let their imagination go wild and make really fancy windows! You can see a lot of these windows at Howell. Because it was so pretty, this style was called Decorated Gothic. Another 100 years later, people got bored of the Decorated Gothic style and made a new style. The window patterns were less curvy and instead lots of long stripes were used. This is called Perpendicular Gothic. There is one window in this style at Howell...see if you can spot it! John Spencer gave a lot of money to have the church re-decorated in 1424. It was redecorated again in 1870 and a lot of the stained glass was put in around 1860. |