south, the stairs being built in the south pier and the staircase
projecting in a cant in the north-east angle of the south aisle, and
externally (all its masonry now refaced), in the re-entering angle
between the chancel and the south aisle of the nave. The entrance to
the stairs is at the extreme east end of the nave’s south wall, but
the doorway has been too much renovated to be worth measuring. The
steps within are about 2 ft. wide, and turn on a cylindrical stone
newel. The stair opens westwards, under an imperfect four-centred
arch, onto a small landing in the hollow of the wall, whence another
step or two led up northwards onto the loft itself, under an horizontal
lintel. The east end of the latter abuts against the head of the
four-centred arch just named, and is carried on a corbel sculptured to
represent the demi-figure of a man, crowned and bearded. The awkward
combination of these two doorways, in the south-east corner of the
nave, is most peculiar. Indeed it is clear that the uppermost doorway
cannot be in its original state, because its west side and jamb are
composed of a large stone slab set on end, the incised crosses on the
surface of which unmistakably testify to its having been a consecrated
altar-stone. As such it could not have been placed in its present
position until after the Reformation. (October 1911.)
NUTHALL.--Under the west side of the chancel-arch stands an oak screen
of five rectangular compartments, _i.e._ two narrower ones on either
hand of a wider compartment for the entrance. The ornament in the head
of the latter is modern work of the year 1884. The screen is 13 ft.
long by 8 ft. 4 in. high. The tracery in the fenestration-heads is
of two orders, the first consisting of crocketed ogee ornament. This
chancel-screen has obviously been reconstructed. The fact is that both
this and another screen (which occupies the arch at the east end of
the nave’s north aisle, and embodies some portions of original work),
were made up from a parclose that surrounded the Temple pew at the
east end of the north aisle and was taken down in 1884 “cleaned from
paint, restored and re-erected” in the present situations. Rev. Dr.
Cox, however, is of opinion that the Temple parclose itself had, at
some time after the Reformation, been constructed out of the ancient
rood-screen.
ORDSALL.--At the west end of the church stands a good screen, of
late-fifteenth century workmanship, retaining its coving complete and
comprising three bays on either hand of the entrance. Rev. Dr. Cox, on
the internal evidence of the screen itself, is disposed to discredit
the common tradition that it is a domestic work, brought hither from
Hayton Castle.
SCARLE, SOUTH.--The rood-screen, dating apparently from the time
of Henry VI., was removed in 1871, but has since been repaired and
refitted. It now stands at the chancel opening, and measures 12 ft.
5 in. long by 9 ft. 7 in. high. It comprises three bays of depressed
two-centred arches, of which the middle one, perceptibly narrower than
the others, forms the doorway, with a clear opening of 3 ft. 5 in. The
wainscot is 3 ft. 7 in. high, each bay of it divided into two panels,
corresponding to the two main lights of the fenestration, and having
head-tracery which reproduces on a smaller scale and of one order only
the fenestration tracery. The latter is of bold character, and in
two orders, the first of which consists of crocketed ogee ornament.
The finials have been displaced and incorrectly fixed just above the
springers of the perished vaulting. The ribs of the latter sprang from
polygonal moulded and embattled caps.
SHELFORD.--By the time that Stretton wrote, in 1818, the screen had
already “been taken down, except a part within the arch (? a tympanum)
bearing the King’s Arms of the time of George I.” Matthew Henry Barker,
author of _Walks Round Nottingham_, in 1835 wrote:--“On the skreen,
dividing the body of the church from the chancel, is the Royal Arms
flamingly painted, and the artist has left his name upon his work,
‘Charles Blunt, 1717.’ There are also the names of the churchwardens
for that year.” The corbels noted by J. T. Godfrey in May 1885,
projecting “from the walls of the nave, just above the capitals of the
piers of the chancel-arch,” were, without doubt, designed to carry the
rood-loft or rood-beam.
SIBTHORPE.--On 3rd December 1336 the founder of the Collegiate
establishment gave ample endowments for various religious purposes,
including the providing of a lamp to burn, on stated occasions, before
the rood.
SOUTHWELL.--The Minster, being a secular canons’ church, had not a
rood-screen in addition to the pulpitum, but the latter served both
purposes. There appears to be no evidence to show where the Norman
pulpitum stood; but that the present site, the eastern crossing,
was the position of the pulpitum at least from the beginning of the
thirteenth century, is proved by the existence of an early English
doorway giving access from the north-west part of the south quire-aisle
to the staircase leading to the top of the loft. This doorway, 2 ft. 6½
in. wide, opens onto the foot of the stairs at a level of about 5 ft. 6
in. from the floor, and is the only relic of the earlier pulpitum. That
which still happily survives is a magnificent specimen of stonework
dating from the early years of Edward III., while the eastward front of
it, the latest portion, was finished about the middle of the fourteenth
century. The pulpitum extends over the entire area between the eastern
crossing piers, its back part projecting considerably beyond the
eastern limit of the said piers. The total breadth covered from east
to west is 17 ft. 6 in. On plan the pulpitum at the east or back part
consists of two parallel walls 2 ft. 7 in. apart, while the west front
is an open arcade of three arches between two blind arches. The eastern
elevation is 21 ft. 1 in. high by 32 ft. 3 in. long, the western 21
ft. 6 in. high by 28 ft. 7 in. long. In the westward arcade the middle
arch, narrower than the others, has a clear opening of 4 ft. 10 in. and
centres at 6 ft. 7½ in. The northern arch is about half an inch wider
than the southern, but they have approximately a clear opening of 5 ft.
2½ in. each and centre at 7 ft. each. The arches spring at a level of
9 ft. 11 in., the height from the springing to the apex of the opening
being 4 ft. 11 in. The arches are two-centred and boldly cusped, the
cusps having a slight ogee curve at the crown of the foliations.
The space under the pulpitum is 21 ft. 9½ in. long from north to south
(or 20 ft. 7½ in. on the ground), and is 8 ft. 3 in. in the clear
from east to west between the keelmoulds of the reveals. Each end
wall within is beautifully panelled with blind tracery of flamboyant
character, having three lights, over a shallow recess, gabled above
and cusped beneath, as though for a tomb such as Bishop Gower’s,
which occupies a somewhat analogous situation under the pulpitum at
St. David’s Cathedral. The roof overhead is vaulted in three bays,
ranging from north to south, with open vaulting-ribs, under a flat
ceiling, with skeleton trefoils in their spandrels. (Skeleton vaulting
again occurs, for instance, under the fourteenth-century pulpita of
Lincoln and St. David’s cathedrals.) Of the two parallel walls at the
back part of Southwell pulpitum, the western one should perhaps be
more accurately described as a three-arch arcade, of which the north
and south arches are walled up to the height of 7 ft. 8 in. from the
ground. At the foot of each of these walls, as against a reredos, just
as in the similarly planned pulpitum at Chichester, it is probable
that an altar stood, until the Reformation. The spaces above the walls
to the apex of the arches were once protected, as numerous holes in
their stone framework testify, by metal grates, or by stanchions and
saddle-bars. The central archway affords the opening, 4 ft. 10 in.
wide, of the passage into the quire. On either hand of this passage,
between the two parallel walls, a flight of steps leads up to the top
of the pulpitum. According to a writer in the _Building News_, 28th
February 1887, neither of these flights of steps had been discovered
and opened out until some few years previously to that date. Until then
the only means in use to reach the top had been the original stair
which ascends from the south quire aisle. In either staircase opening
from the central passage hangs a door, set back 2 ft. 4 in. from the
passage, so as to swing forwards, and yet clear of, the latter. The
western parapet to the pulpitum is embattled above a band of pierced
tracery on a wave basis, the height of the parapet from the loft floor
level to the summit of the battlements being 4 ft. 5 in. The east
doorway from under the pulpitum into the quire has a clear opening of
4 ft. 10½ in., and is flanked on either hand by three canopied stalls
(the return-stalls of the quire) centring at 3 ft. 1½ in., all of stone
and integral structurally with the pulpitum itself--a most unusual, if
not indeed unique, arrangement. The springing of the canopies is at a
height of 8 ft. 9½ in. above the quire floor level. Above the stalls is
an upper tier of stone-tracery, blind except in the case of the panels
over the middle stall on each side. This pair of panels is pierced to
light the staircases within. Beyond the stalls each extremity of the
east façade of the pulpitum has a blind panel from top to bottom as
in the west front. The east front is of extraordinary delicacy and
elaboration, being without doubt, as above stated, later in date than
the other. It must, however, be acknowledged that much of the ornament
was renovated in composition, at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, by Berndsconi, an Italian, the same who “restored” the carved
work of York Minster pulpitum. As for the example at Southwell, Canon
J. F. Dimock, in 1853, observed that the feature of “double foliations
... does not occur in any original portion” of the pulpitum. Mr. H. H.
Statham considers it peculiar as “a pronounced example of the German”
device of interpenetrating mouldings. The mural “diaper-work on the
inner side of the screen,” he continues, is remarkable because, in the
“minute design dividing the wall-surface ... into small squares ...
every square is differently treated--a by no means usual refinement.”
[Illustration: SOUTHWELL MINSTER: PULPITUM, FROM THE
WEST.]
[Illustration:
_Photo: Mr. Arthur Lineker._
SOUTHWELL MINSTER: PULPITUM, FROM THE EAST.]
In the early part of the nineteenth century, plaster screens, the
work of Berndsconi, embodying portions of the originals, were erected
between the quire and its aisles. This plaster-work was removed on the
recommendation, in 1875, of Mr. Ewan Christian, endorsed by Mr. G. E.
Street, that “new screens of oak on the model of those which formerly
existed,” should be substituted. “Fragments were found still remaining
_in situ_; besides many loose pieces, which had been stored in the
roof of the chapter house,” and upon these the new screens were based.
They were finished by 1892, the carvers being Messrs. Cornish and
Gaymer, of North Walsham. If only the fragments of old work had been
preserved and incorporated, instead of being merely copied, in the new
work, the latter, as enshrining them, might have had some justification
for its existence. As it stands, however, it is absolutely commonplace
and devoid of interest. (October 1911.)
STAUNTON.--Across the chancel-arch is a screen which Rev. Dr. Cox
esteems one of the most interesting in the county, because it bears
both the date of execution and the donor’s name. The inscription,
sculptured in relief in black-letter along the middle-rail,
reads:--“(Pray) for the saule of Mayster Simon Yates, bachelor in Law,
living in Newark, Parson of this Church and of Beckingham, and official
of the Archdeaconry, (who) caused this Rood lofte and the Tabernacle of
our Lady to be made in the yere of our Lord MCCCCCXV, on whose saul God
have mercie.” The screen is fairly perfect, except that it has lost its
loft. “The Rector, the Rev. F. J. Ross, has himself taken the trouble
to remove the many coats of paint with which it was covered.”
STRELLEY (1907).--The oak rood-screen, a remarkably rich and handsome
specimen of Perpendicular (about 1490), and bearing a striking
resemblance to the parclose in the south transept at Chesterfield,
stands against the west side of the chancel-arch. It measures 16 ft.
4 in. long by 14 ft. 10 in. high over all on the west. It comprises
five bays vaulted towards the nave, the entrance having a clear opening
of 2 ft. 10¼ in., with doors complete, occupying the central bay.
The centring of the bays varies from 3 ft. 2½ in. to 3 ft. 4 in. The
wainscot stands 5 ft. ¼ in. high, this measure including a stone
plinth 7¾ in. high. The middle rail is ornamented along the front
with a band of tracery--a wave between quatrefoils. Each compartment
is divided into four panels corresponding to the lights of the
fenestration. The panels have cinquefoil-cusped ornament in the head
and a band of quatrefoils--two apiece to the panel--along the skirting.
The fenestration is four-centred arched, lofty, and divided by three
muntins (one central between two narrower muntins) in each bay into
four narrow lights, the opening of which varies from 5 in. to 5½ in.
only. The fenestration has very rich tracery with carved crockets and
finials to the depth of 2 ft. 5 in. in the head. This ornament, in
typical Midland fashion, is plain at the back, or east side. Two feet
below the cord-line of the head-tracery the screen (all but the middle
bay with the doors) is crossed by a transom of which the top edge (once
enriched with cresting, now perished) is 3 ft. 4½ in. above the middle
rail. In each light the under side of this transom has cinquefoil
cusped ornament, the cord-line of which is on a level with that of the
head-tracery in the screen doors. The doorway has a moulded, horizontal
lintel, crested along the top, above a four-centred arch, cusped and
feathered underneath, with solid carved spandrels, enclosing each a
Tudor rose. The boutel-shafts are clustered and have polygonal moulded
bases and caps. The springing level of the vaulting is some 11 ft.
6 in. from the bottom, and about 13 in. above the cord-line of the
fenestration tracery. On the west front the tierceron vaulting ribs,
with tracery between, are perfect but the solid panels behind the
tracery have unfortunately been removed, a mistake which gives the
vaulting a false and unsubstantial appearance. The breast-summer has a
trail of vine ornament. Seven massive joists, running east and west,
carried the rood-loft floor, now removed. The eastward projection,
protruding under the chancel-arch into the chancel, is some 9 or 10 in.
in excess of that of the vaulting on the west, the total width over all
from east to west at the top being 6 ft. 8 in. The extremities of the
breast-summer in the nave are cut off abruptly, a fact which seems
to indicate that the rood-loft extended continuously, 35 ft. 6 in.
long, across the whole interior, aisles as well as nave.
[Illustration: STRELLE CHURCH: ROOD-SCREEN]
STURTON-LE-STEEPLE.--The oak rood-screen, a fine example of
fifteenth-century work, perished in a grievously destructive fire in
1901.
SUTTON-ON-TRENT (28th October 1911).--In the arch between the south
aisle of the nave and the south, or Mering chapel, stand a small, but
handsome, oak screen and loft, dating between about 1505 and 1520. The
screen, 7 ft. 6 in. long by 7 ft. 3 in. high, comprises a door at the
north end and three rectangular compartments, centring at 1 ft. 1½ in.
on the south. The wainscot stands 4 ft. 4 in. high, with rich tracery
ornaments to the depth of 10 in. in its panel-heads. There is a trail
along the middle rail. The fenestration head-tracery is 11 in. deep.
The doorway has an opening 6 ft. 3 in. high by 2 ft. 9 in., under a
depressed arch formed by hollowing the under part of the lintel, which
is carved along the front, with a shield of the Mering arms (argent on
a chevron sable three escallops or) in the middle. The door is complete
and is divided into three panels centring from 9½ in. to 10½ in., the
openings above its middle rail being without tracery in the head. The
solid panel-work below rises to the same level as the wainscot, but the
head-tracery, 9½ in. to 10 in. deep, in its panels is of a different
design from the corresponding ornaments in the wainscot itself. The
middle rail of the door has a trail like the wainscot.
The screen, being of rectangular construction, is of course unvaulted;
but the underneath part, or soffit, of the westward overhanging loft
is divided by mouldings into twelve rectangular panels ranging in a
double row of six from north to south. The loft overhangs eastwards
also, but the soffit under the hinder part is not divided into panels.
Both eastern and western parapets measure 3 ft. 2 in. high within
the loft from the platform to the hand-rail top, the distance from
front to back between eastern and western hand-rails being 7 ft. 4
in. The western parapet extends 12 ft. 10 in. long from side to side
of the south aisle, and is fixed against the latter’s east wall, the
breast-summer being supported at either end, at a level of 7 ft. 8 in.
from the ground, on a massive stone corbel fixed in the said wall. The
breast-summer has the remains of an inverted brattishing along the
under edge, and a carved and pierced trail along its front. The parapet
comprises eleven plain panels centring from 1 ft. 2 in. to 1 ft. 3 in.
They are each 2 ft. 6 in. high, their plane being some 9 in. back from
the utmost projection of the breast-summer and hand-rail. The stiles,
almost as wide as the panels, are moulded along either edge and have
each a strip of tracery up the middle between a pair of narrow and very
shapely buttresses. The tops of the buttresses are cut away to enable a
trail, much like that on the breast-summer, to be inserted immediately
below the hand-rail. Above the latter, again, a long band of tracery
(consisting of a series of rosette-centred quatrefoils within circles),
set obliquely at an angle of 45, is fixed--possibly not its original
position. The height over all from the top to the floor is 11 ft. 5
in. The east front of the loft, 12 ft. 10 in. long by 3 ft. 10 in.
high, and 7 ft. 7 in. above the floor, was constructed as follows:--Two
tiers of panels (uniformly semicircular-headed, with solid carved
spandrels) ranging from end to end; four panels on the north, of which
the northernmost centres at 1 ft. 9 in., the three others at 1 ft. 2
in.; next, a projecting bay, and to south of it three panels centring
at 1 ft. 1½ in. There is an old bench for seats attached inside the
loft to this south-east section. The bay, projecting some 10 in. in
advance of the breast-summer, comprises three cants, the side cants 1
ft. 1½ in. wide at the bottom and diminishing to a point at the top,
the central cant, toward the east, 2 ft. ½ in. wide at the bottom and
widening upward to 3 ft. across at the level of the hand-rail; and
having a singular feature of an extra row of three more panels above
it, the three measuring 2 ft. 6¼ in. from north to south by 1 ft. 6½
in. high. It will be realised that on this plan the middle cant would
perceptibly tilt back westwards at the top; a defect satisfactorily
provided against by the fact that the top of the parapet leans forward
5 in. (reckoned inside the loft) out of the perpendicular.
Such the Mering loft continued to be until shortly before Easter 1911,
when, in respect of its most remarkable feature, it was wantonly
mutilated. The projecting bay was then sawn off flush with the straight
stretch of parapet on either hand of it, leaving an unsightly,
gaping void--and all for what? Merely for the caprice of planting a
huge, modern organ in the Mering chapel 10 in. more to the west than
would have been possible had the loft been preserved intact! That is
literally the sole advantage gained by sacrificing a monument of four
hundred years’ standing, a monument not only unique of its kind in
the county of Nottinghamshire, but exceedingly rare in any part of
England whatever. Whether authorised by a faculty or not, in any event
the proceeding reflects the utmost discredit on everybody concerned.
When I visited the church, six or seven months afterwards, I found the
dismembered parts of the bay left, like lumber, in the loft itself--or
rather some of the parts, for a portion of the embattled ornament
along the base of the bay, in continuation with the breast-summer
battlements, was already missing. What safeguard is there to hinder the
rest from disappearing in the same way?
For access to the rood-loft a polygonal turret staircase, cylindrical
within, the steps turning on a newel, was built in the re-entering
angle between the chancel and the nave’s south aisle. Subsequently,
in the sixteenth century, the Mering chapel was erected, but the
rood-turret was still retained and thus became internal. The entrance,
at the north-west of the chapel, is a four-centred doorway 1 ft. 8
in. wide by 5 ft. 4 in. The stair, the stone steps of which are much
worn, emerges upon the south loft platform at a height of 8 ft. 2 in.
from the chapel floor below. Two feet higher a rectangular passage,
5 ft. high by 2 ft. 2½ in. wide, under a timber horizontal lintel,
led through the hollow of the wall northwards onto the south end of
the rood-loft. The opening is now blocked, but its cill, about 31 in.
long, is still visible near the west end of the south wall of the
chancel; showing exactly where the passage issued at a level of 11
ft. 6 in. from the ground. No trace of the rood-loft itself remains,
except that in the east sweep of the easternmost arch of the nave’s
south arcade some of the stonework has been hacked away, presumably for
the accommodation of the rood-loft’s western parapet. A two-centred,
shallow recess in the north spandrel of the chancel arch has been a
niche, accessible from the rood-loft, but must not be confounded with
the door admitting to the latter from the rood-stair.
Rev. H. Hudson, Rector of Holy Trinity, Old Trafford, surmises that
the object referred to in the Thoroton Society’s _Proceedings_,
1902, as “the curious frontage of what may have been a small gallery
over the belfry, and an old clock-face” is more likely to have been
the mediæval celure, or canopy of honour over the great rood. The
object in question, 11 ft. long by 4 ft. 5½ in., consists of a panel,
3 ft. 6 in. high by 3 ft. wide, between two openings, each 3 ft. 2
in. wide. Mr. Hudson says that the most striking points about it are
these:--(1) The framework of the panels shows traces of red and green
in the hollow of the mouldings, whilst all over, in spite of a later
disguise of paint and varnish, there can be detected remains of ancient
colouring in black and white, beside the red and green; (2) a shallow
battlement along the top rail; and (3) a series of six mortice-holes,
all cut aslant, along the bottom rail, as though the panelling had once
been fixed anglewise to form a canopy over the rood, in which case the
so-called “clock-face” would be a nimbus of rays, and the aperture in
the middle, mistaken for the place of the spindle of the clock hand,
the hole for suspending the Lenten rood-veil or possibly the light
before the rood.
WILFORD.--A rood-stair turret, cylindrical on plan, occupies the
re-entering angle between the chancel and the north aisle. It is
surmounted by a plain horizontal parapet, level with those of the nave
and chancel.
WILLOUGHBY-ON-THE-WOLDS.--Part of the old oak screen remained in 1815
when Stretton wrote. It is now no more, but Rev. A. M. Y. Bayley, in
1902, stated his opinion that it was not until the “restoration” of the
chancel in 1891 that all traces of screenwork disappeared.
WINKBURN.--There is no structural chancel-arch, but marking the
division is an open quasi-screen of four lofty posts (seventeenth, or
possibly late-sixteenth century work). The pedimental space above, up
to the roof, is filled with a plaster tympanum, against which is a
painted representation of the Royal Arms, dated 1764.