which has been repaired in places, but is, in the main, authentic
work of about 1475. Its total length is 10 ft. 4½ in., and its height
(exclusive of a poor, modern parody of brattishing) 9 ft. 7 in. It
consists of six bays, centring from 1 ft. 8½ in. to 1 ft. 9 in., the
two middle bays together forming the doorway, with a clear opening of
3 ft. 1 in. under a four-centred door-head. The doors are wanting.
The wainscot, including the ground-cill, is 4 ft. 3 in. high, with
tracery in the head of the panels (two panels to each bay) to the depth
of 7½ in. The two-centred arched openings above have head-tracery to
the depth of 2 ft. 1 in., originally supported on one central muntin,
which divided each bay of the fenestration into two lights, but has
been improperly removed to make the screen more open. The distance from
the middle rail to the cord-line is 3 ft.; the cord-line being 8½ in.
higher than the spring of the arch over the entrance. The latter once
had rich cusping underneath, of which nothing but mutilated stumps now
remain. The upper side of the arch has a row of crockets hollowed out
behind, and perforated and carved in the most refined manner. They are
now sadly broken. The tracery in the side openings is enriched with
an ogee, imposed in relief, with crockets and finial to correspond.
The east face of the screen is flat and plain compared with the west
face. The vaulting, now utterly perished, sprang, at a height of 13 in.
above the cord-line, from polygonal embattled caps, each resting, not
on a single boutel, but on a cluster of three small, engaged shafts. A
feature of the screen is the embattled transom which runs right through
the fenestration tracery on a line with the springing-caps. The latter
being very similar in design to the transom, the effect is unusually
coherent and satisfying.
The rood-stair turret, polygonal on plan, stands in the eastern
abutment at the end of the north arcade wall, and projects on either
hand, northwards into the aisle, and southwards into the nave. It is
continued within the building up to the aisle roof, above which it
rises as high as the nave, terminating in a plain horizontal parapet.
Stone steps inside turn on a cylindrical newel. The stair is entered
from the nave through a four-centred doorway, 5 ft. high by 1 ft. 7
in., the door swinging inward. The issue, in a direct line above the
entrance, is now blocked up, but the stone door-frame is visible, 1 ft.
5½ in. wide by 4 ft. 9 in. high, to the crown of its arched head, the
form of which may be described as segmental with rounded corners. The
threshold has been tampered with, but it is evident that the doorway
opened on to the loft at a height of 10 ft. 3½ in. above the present
nave floor level.
In the arch between the chancel of the south chapel stands an oak
parclose of about the year 1440. It is rectangular in construction,
10 ft. 2½ in. in length, and comprises four compartments, centring at
about 30 in. The wainscot is 4 ft. 5½ in. high, having tracery to the
depth of 12¼ in. in the head of each of the three panels with which
each compartment is divided. The fenestration correspondingly consists
of three lights to each compartment with tracery in the head to the
depth of 12½ in.; the height from the middle rail to the cord-line
being 23½ in. The second compartment from the east is the door. The
total height of the screen is 8 ft. including an embattled lintel of
modern work.
KEYWORTH.--The rood-loft was approached at the north end through the
east spandrel of the easternmost arch of the north arcade. Although the
apertures have been walled up, the jambs of the rood-stair entrance in
the north aisle and of the issue into the nave were visible until the
“restoration” in 1874, or even later, but they are now entirely hidden
by plastering. Cuts in the naveward corners of the abacus on each side
of the easternmost arch of the north arcade mark the place where a
timber parclose was formerly fixed. (October 1911.)
KINGSTON-ON-SOAR.--In 1819, Stretton noted that the screen was
standing, and that it had “plain tracery, but ... no appearance of a
rood-loft.” This apparently means that the screen was not vaulted, but
rectangular in construction. It has, unfortunately, been removed.
KNEESALL.--The latticed screen had already been taken down when
Stretton wrote, about 1820.
LAMBLEY.--There is no chancel-arch, but in the chancel opening stands
an oak screen to which Rev. Dr. Cox assigns the date 1377. It is of
Perpendicular work and rectangular form. It comprises five compartments
on either hand of the entrance, all with tracery in the head of
the fenestration. The screen is 11 ft. 2 in. high by 18 ft. long.
The central doorway is 4 ft. 2 in. wide, but no doors remain. “The
rood-loft was approached by a staircase on the north side.”
LANGAR.--In 1851, Andrew Esdaile remarked the original rood-loft
still standing, and kept with great care as a beautiful ornament and
one of extreme rarity, if not unique, in the neighbourhood. In 1864
the Associated Societies’ Reports observed that the screen, though
somewhat heavy, was “a fine specimen of carved work of its time, ...
the half-canopy” being “especially good.” A staircase within the screen
afforded “the sole access to the tower.” But by the time that J. T.
Godfrey wrote, in 1907, the rood-screen had “been swept away, except
the beam and jambs,” which were then fixed up at the west end of
the nave. There the relics of the screenwork, with tracery panelling
beneath a carved vine-trail, may still be seen. The north transept is
shut in by parcloses on the south and west; the south transept by a
parclose on the north only. These screens are of oak and have undergone
some restoration.
LAXTON.--The rood-screen which extends from side to side of the
nave, across the front of the chancel-arch, is a fine specimen of
Perpendicular, conjectured to have been erected by Bishop Rotherham
between 1480 and 1500. The head-ornament of the fenestration is of two
orders, the first consisting of a crocketed canopy on the face of the
tracery, the second the pierced tracery itself. The screen was moved
bodily one bay westwards of its original position when the church was
altered in 1860 by Mr. T. C. Hine. To adapt it to its new situation,
the screen was then lengthened by some additional work at one end. A
parclose in the north aisle embodies portions of ancient screenwork,
richly carved, and bearing the words of the angelic salutation and a
shield charged with the Five Wounds, _goutté de sang_ (mistaken by
Thoroton for “weeping eyes”). The donor’s name, Robert de Trafford,
and the date, 1532, are also inscribed upon this screen. There is,
moreover, a parclose in the south aisle.
LEVERTON, NORTH.--James Nightgale, by will dated 5th October 1545,
bequeathed his “bodie to bee buried in the churche ... of Northelewton
before the Rood-lofte.”
LEVERTON, SOUTH.--The chancel-screen was removed during the
“restoration” in 1897. Some portions are still stored in the belfry,
but it appears, according to Mr. Harry Gill, to have been but a poor
work, executed in deal. In that case it was certainly not a mediæval
structure.
LOWDHAM.--A bequest by Robert Peper, of Morton, on 9th May 1529, of
half a quarter of barley “to the roode off loodame” is believed to
refer to Lowdham.
MAPLEBECK.--The screen, described by Stretton as a “studded partition,”
is of seventeenth-century workmanship, with balustrades, but the lintel
is pronounced by Rev. Dr. Cox to be of the fifteenth century.
MARKHAM, EAST.--Christopher Saureby, Vicar, by will, 30th April 1439,
desired to be buried “before the chancel-door,” _i.e._ beneath the
foot of the Great Rood. In 1907, Rev. A. E. Briggs observed that the
rood-screen, “apparently cut down in Laudian days, was removed to its
present position in 1897.” The rood-stair entrance (blocked and turned
into a chimney in the early part of the nineteenth century) is situated
in the east wall of the nave, to south of the chancel-arch. In a direct
line above it, in the south spandrel of the chancel-arch, is the former
issue onto the rood-loft--a four-centred doorway, likewise blocked.
There is a rood-turret at the south-east corner of the nave.
MARKHAM CLINTON (otherwise West Markham).--In this church, now
abandoned to decay, are the scanty remains of a screen of late date.
They comprise a set of plain standards (the doorway opening 3 ft. 3 in.
wide) and some eighteenth-century panelling which fills the space above
the lintel.
MUSKHAM, NORTH (October 1911).--The fifteenth-century rood-screen,
having become dilapidated, was extensively restored, in the first
decade of the twentieth century, by Bowman, of Stamford. It measures
12 ft. 7 in. long and comprises six bays, centring from 2 ft. 1 in.
to 2 ft. 1½ in., the two midmost bays forming the entrance. The
wainscot, exclusive of the modern ground-cill, stands 3 ft. 11 in.
high, with tracery in the head of the panels to the depth of 9 in.,
two traceries only of the original surviving on the north side. Of the
skirting ornament, which is 8½ in. high, some parts on the north side
are authentic. The entrance has a clear opening of 3 ft. 9½ in., and
there are no gates. The cord-line is 3 ft. 4 in. above the middle rail,
and the tracery in the head of the fenestration is 31 in. deep. That
on the west face is of two orders, the first consisting of crocketed
ogees implanted. The tracery is less finished on the east face, solid
carved spandrels above it showing that the vaulting projected only
westward. The level of the springing of the groined vaults is 17 in.
above the cord-line. The boutel-caps for the springing of the ribs
are clustered groups of three each, with architectural carving. The
vaulting and the platform at the top of the screen are entirely new.
As recently as 1902--before the “restoration,” that is--the screen,
robbed of its original vaulting, stood surmounted by a cornice of
seventeenth-century work. The rood-loft was approached from the north;
the bottom entrance being situated in the north aisle in the east
abutment of the nave’s north arcade. It is secured by an ancient oak
door, fitted with two iron strap-hinges, and swinging back against
the east wall of the aisle. The threshold of the stair is 4 ft. 7 in.
above the nave floor, and the wooden door frame is rectangular (20½ in.
wide by 4 ft. 6 in. high), the southward underside of the lintel being
hollowed out to provide for the rise of the stair in the hollow of the
arcade-wall, which is 35 in. thick. Two original stone steps remain,
rising 20 in. altogether. The rest of the steps are entirely modern,
affording an ascent less steep than the original one was. A series
of eight oblong chases at regular intervals, under the western order
of the chancel-arch, shows where the vertical quarters of a boarded
tympanum were fixed; and a pair of chases, somewhat further toward the
east, mark the site of an horizontal timber, which held the tympanum
in place. A vertical chase through the east part of the label of the
easternmost arch of the south arcade marks where the front of the
rood-loft parapet projected in the nave. Another pair of chases, 8 in.
high, in the eastward order of the chancel-arch, shows the position of
the parapet of the rood-loft toward the chancel, and that the top of it
reached to a height of 16 ft. 5 in. above the present nave floor level.
Two runs of panelling from the fronts of pews, or chancel-stall desks,
are now set up in the south aisle in a deceptive fashion that suggests
the wainscot of a parclose screen cut down, which even a cursory
examination is enough to prove that they never could have been.
MUSKHAM, SOUTH.--If the screen was originally elaborate, it had at any
rate lost its ornament by 1859, in which year the upper part, then a
plain rectangular frame of oak, was levelled down to the middle rail.
The wainscot was spared for the time, but, being mistaken for deal,
it was ultimately removed at the “restoration,” 1873–82. The pieces
are said to have been treasured religiously by the old clerk, John
Fletcher; but the son who succeeded him being dead, and the home broken
up, all traces of the ancient screenwork have disappeared. (Information
kindly supplied by Miss M. B. Hull, of North Muskham.) Fortunately,
however, the building itself affords some indications of the ancient
arrangements. In the eastward order of the chancel-arch a square patch
of new stone--on the north side 10 in. high, and at a level of 13 in.
above the capital; on the south side 12 in. high and 10 in. above the
capital--probably marks the level of the screen lintel. The soffit of
the arch has been much scraped, but there are distinct traces of a
groove under the north sweep for fitting in the boarding of a tympanum;
and toward the west, just under the apex of the arch, are two sunk
spaces, where the top of a vertical timber was made to fit into the
stone. (October 1911.)
NEWARK.--Reference in a will in 1482 shows that at that date there
existed an altar of St. Crux in the church. The indenture, dated 21st
February 1531–32, of Thomas Magnus for the founding of a free Grammar
school and free Song school, ordained that the song-schoolmaster and
six children should nightly recite, after the antiphon of our Lady,
“another antempne of Jhesus ... afore the rode in the bodye of the
churche (_i.e._ in the nave); ... knelyng in the manner and forme as
... hath and ys usyd before the Roode of the north dore in ... Seynt
Paule in London and in the college of Wyndesore (St. George’s Chapel),
with lyke prostracions and devout maner.”
The general opinion is that, though the character of the work looks
ten or fifteen years earlier, the construction of the rood-screen and
loft was begun in 1492 and finished in 1508. This opinion rests on the
fact that there is preserved, among the papers of the Corporation, an
acquittance of the latter date, by which the churchwardens and others
acknowledge that a carver, Thomas Drawswerd, of York, has thoroughly
carried out his undertaking to make the “reredose.”
The Rev. J. F. Dimock, in 1855, appears to have been the first to
interpret the term “reredose” in this case to mean the rood-loft, and
subsequent writers on the subject have taken the identification for
granted, notwithstanding the word “rood-loft” was in familiar use at
the date in question, and there is no reason why it should not have
been employed in the acquittance, if it was really meant. In that
event, two bequests in 1509, viz., that of Thomas Pygg, who left 40s.
“to gild the picture of the reredos,” and that of Elizabeth Jenyn, who
left £3 for “giltyng of the reredos,” would refer to the decoration of
the screen and loft. Another bequest, that of John Philipote, who in
the same year, 1509, left a sum of money for “gilding the Rodehouse,”
though the precise meaning is obscure, does more certainly refer to
some part of the structure connected with the Rood.
[Illustration: NEWARK CHURCH: ROOD-SCREEN, FROM THE
NORTH-WEST.]
There is no question whatever that the Perpendicular oak rood-screen
is an exceedingly magnificent example of its kind. It stands, at a
distance of some 126 ft. from the west door, against the west face of
the piers of the eastern crossing. It must originally have extended,
or been designed to extend, across the chancel-aisles as well as the
chancel-opening. Its ends, however, are cut off abruptly, and furbished
with modern ornament, to give the truncation a specious appearance
of completeness. It now measures 36 ft. 6 in. long, and consists of
nineteen bays centring from 1 ft. 10 in. to 1 ft. 11½ in. The four
bays of either end are blind, and no doubt served as reredoses for
altars. Of the eleven bays with open fenestration, the three in the
middle are occupied by the four-centred doorway into the chancel. The
wainscot is 4 ft. 10 in. high, with tracery to the depth of 14 in. in
the head of each of the two panels into which each bay is divided. The
spandrels of this head-ornament are solid, and sculptured with a great
variety of forms--angels, masks, birds, beasts, and monsters. The doors
are complete, and measure 5 ft. 3 in. across when closed, the jambs
centring at 5 ft. 8 in. The fenestration has a lofty opening of 9 ft.
2 in. from the middle rail to the crown of its two-centred arches. The
distance from the middle rail to the cord-line of the fenestration
tracery is 45 in. So slight, however, is all the lower portion of the
head-ornament--simply a muntin, rising from the summit of a cusped arc,
and dividing the opening into two lights--that the virtual cord-line
is the springing-point, some 30 in. higher, of the arches of the twin
lights. Above their head the tracery, in two orders, has a first order
with a crocketed ogee running up to a finial. The vaulting toward the
east as well as toward the west springs, at a level of 4 ft. 1 in.
above the cord-line and 12 ft. 8 in. above the foot of the screen, from
moulded polygonal caps, resting each on a triple cluster of engaged
shafts. From each cap spring five ribs and two half-ribs, the latter
along the screen’s axial line, where each pair of half-ribs meets in
the apex of the arched opening. The extremities of the projecting ribs
are not embedded in a breast-summer, but, arching forward and downward,
produce a series of pendent arches along the front of the screen top.
The interstices of the groining have no cusping, but combine to form,
in the crown of each bay, as it were the four arms of a cross pointed,
composed of four hexagons, two of them more elongated than the others.
These hexagons again are sub-divided by mouldings into four circles or
vesicas (sixteen to the bay) in which are inserted leaden discs, cast
and gilt, of fine perforated tracery, in appearance not unlike the rose
ornament in the sound-hole of a guitar. The screen, exclusive of the
cresting, stands slightly over 16 ft. in height. The whole is raised
on a stone base, or stepped platform, 1 ft. above the nave level. The
screen was repaired in about 1815. In 1853 the paint was cleaned off
and the screen “restored with an almost incredible amount of labour,”
writes Cornelius Brown, “the greatest portion of the upper part of
the carved work being new.” The whole surface is now very dark, but
slight traces of scarlet here and there show that originally it was
gay with colour. The rood-stair, lighted by one pierced quatrefoil and
two plain rectangular loops, is contained in the south-east pier of
the crossing. It is entered from the east, in the south chancel-aisle,
through a four-centred doorway 1 ft. 10 in. wide. The steps averaging
1 ft. 11 in. wide, turn on a cylindrical newel. There are twenty stone
winders, culminating in two wooden steps which emerge westward through
a four-centred doorway onto the floor of the loft platform. The organ,
erected in 1804 in a west gallery and subsequently transferred to the
rood-loft, was removed on the recommendation of Sir Gilbert Scott
during the restoration 1853–55. Previously to that time there had been
a gallery front on the top of the screen, forming a complete loft,
with Gothic-like arcading and pinnacles, no earlier, probably, than
the date of the organ-case itself, which was of imitation Gothic. The
rood-loft parapets are now wanting. The platform, extending across the
chancel opening, measures 24 ft. 6 in. long at its shortest, between
the reveals of the chancel-arch, and 8 ft. 10 in. from front to back.
In the middle, however, over the entrance in the chancel, it projects
3 ft. 5 in. further eastward, forming, as it were, a porch over the
chancel gates. This projection is 7 ft. 1½ in. wide from north to
south, and 12 ft. 3 in. over all from east to west. The two westernmost
arches of the chancel arcades, north and south, are fenced by parcloses
of six bays apiece, having an average centring of 2 ft., and forming
a screen of twelve vaulted bays on each side, behind the stalls. The
canopies of the latter are, in fact, the overhanging vaults of the
screens; for, though the stone pier intervenes midway, the timber
groining is ingeniously contrived, branching outward, to embrace the
pier in such wise that the breast-summer of the two halves together
extends uninterruptedly both chancelwards and chancel-aislewards. There
is no apparent means of access, and perhaps never was, between the
rood-loft and the top of the side-screens, nor is there anything to
show whether the latter ever had any parapets. The middle rail of the
parcloses toward the chancel-aisles is embattled along its upper edge,
and along its face runs a band of tracery on a wave basis. The panels
beneath have head-tracery to the depth of 6¾ in. in the easternmost
sections on each side of the chancel, and 7¾ in. deep in the
westernmost sections, the latter having a somewhat higher level than
the others. The pierced metal ornaments in the rood-screen vaulting
are replaced, in the case of the side-screens, by similar ornaments
in wood. For the rest the design of the side-screens, though adapted,
is virtually identical with that of the rood-screen itself, the whole
series of screens together constituting a coeval and complete scheme.
(1906, and October 1911.)
NORMANTON-ON-TRENT.--The upper doorway of the rood-staircase remains on
the south side; also the corbels for the support of the rood-loft or
rood-beam. (E. L. Guilford.)
NORWELL.--The entrance to the rood-stair is in the north transept.
The doorway is 1 ft. 11 in. wide by 6 ft. 1½ in. The stair comprises
fifteen steps, of which three lead up from without to the newel-stair
within. The ascent is steep and narrow, and the stair emerges 10 ft. 8½
in. from the ground by an opening 1 ft. 7 in. wide.
NOTTINGHAM.--_Carmelite Friary Church._--“When Henry VIII. visited
Nottingham, in August 1511 ... he made an offering ... at the Rood of
the White Friars.” The surrender took place on 5th February 1539.
_St. Catherine’s Chapel_, in the Castle.--The Liberate Roll shows that,
in the year beginning 28th October 1251, Henry III. ordered the Sheriff
of Nottingham to cause “the judgment to be dreaded” to be painted “in
the gable of the ... chapel.” The meaning surely is that the subject of
the Doom was painted on a tympanum, or wall-space, above, or behind,
the Rood.
_St. Mary’s._--The report (among the Records of the Borough of
Nottingham) of an action, 10th February 1517–18, arising out of a
dispute as to the precise place of payment, shows that one of the
litigants, Ralph Palmer, had received 5s. “for a reward for painting
the rood-loft in St. Mary’s.” Alderman Heskey, making his will in 1558,
directed that his body should be buried in the middle alley of the
church, “before the picture of Christ Crucified,” _i.e._ in front of
the Rood.
It is evident that the existing building was planned from the outset
for a rood-loft, the spacing of the windows allowing blank abutments
for the presence of the pair of rood-turrets at the junction of the
outer lateral walls of the nave aisles with the west wall of the
transept. These octagonal turrets, with their eight-sided conical caps
above the transept roof, are conspicuous features of the exterior.
Within the church, at the east end of each outer wall of the nave
aisles, is a stone doorway now blocked, 2 ft. wide by 5 ft. 9 in.
high, which formerly gave access to the newel stairs in the turrets.
The door-frames have deep chamfers, stopped at the foot. The north
doorway is rectangular with rounded corners, and the south one is
similar, only its lintel is slightly cambered underneath. There is no
sign of an upper door on the north, but above the rood-stair entrance
on the south, at a level of 14 ft. from the floor, the place, walled
up with yellow stone, is clearly visible, where a doorway, of the same
width as that below, and apparently two-centred, emerged upon a loft
across the south aisle. There is nothing to show whether the rood-loft
gangway continued in one stretch of 67 ft. across nave and aisles at
the western crossing, or whether, spanning the aisles only at this
point, it returned eastwards across the transepts, to connect with a
loft across the structural chancel-arch. Anyhow, the transepts were
certainly screened off, in pre-Reformation days, to form chapels, that
of All Saints on the north, and that of the Samon chantry on the south.
(October 1911.)
_St. Peter’s._--From a bequest in February 1313–14, it is known that
there was at that date a chapel of the Holy Cross in the building.
Alice Dalby, by will dated 28th March 1459, left 20s. “_fabrice sancte
crucis in le_ rodeloft ... _et eidem cruci_ ... _duas lapides de
byrrall_” and 5s. “_in auro facto_.”