arch, so that its westward face does not project beyond the level of
the east wall of the nave. The screen stands 10 ft. 3 in. high by 13
ft. 7 in. long. It consists of six bays, of which the two midmost
comprise the doorway, with an opening of 3 ft. 8 in. and a height of 6
ft. 11 in. to the crown of the depressed arch. The bays have an average
centring of 27½ inches, the fenestration being 5 ft. 5 in. high from
the cill to the crown of the arch, with tracery in the head to the
depth of 20½ inches, that is, 11 inches lower than the level of the
spring of the former vaulting. The cill is ornamented with flamboyant
geometrical tracery. The solid part from the top of the cill to the
ground is 3 ft. 6 in. high, with blind tracery to the depth of 8¾
inches in the head. The screen is without gates, and is surmounted by
an embattled cresting, beneath which is a band of pierced quatrefoil
ornament. Neither of these can be in its original position, the screen
having formerly been vaulted, although the whole of the groining ribs,
as well as the springing-caps and the bases, are now wanting. The
carved lintel over the doorway is crested along the top, the spandrils
being filled with Tudor roses. These, together with the four-centred
arches of the bays, point to a late phase of Perpendicular. The coat
of arms of Babington, impaling Fitzherbert, in the middle, being only
fastened on where the vaulting ought to be, affords in itself no
criterion as to the date; although the general style of the screen
is entirely consistent with the tradition that it was the gift of
Thomas Babington, who died in 1518. This screen originally was enriched
with painting and gilding, the last traces of which were egregiously
removed in 1843. This was the date, also, of the destruction of the
remains of the handsomely carved parclose-screenwork which surrounded
the Babington chantry in the easternmost bay of the south aisle. The
parclose had a door opening into the nave and another into the aisle;
and the coats of arms now attached to the rood-screen used to be
respectively over these two doorways. The Babington chantry was founded
in 1511, in which year the rood-screen and rood-loft are believed to
have been erected. The rood-stair was blocked up at the “restoration”
of 1843, but has since been reopened. What remains of it consists of
six stone steps, starting in the south-east corner of the north aisle,
and emerging through the easternmost spandril of the north arcade into
the nave at a height of 10 ft. 10 in. from the floor. The rood-door
opened naveward, two iron hangers still remaining in the south jamb of
the doorway, which is 18½ in. wide by 5 ft. 8½ in. high. The door-head
consists of a horizontal lintel. The rood-loft itself cannot have
extended beyond the width of the nave, a length of 20 feet. The rope of
the sacring-bell in the gable immediately above the loft is shown in
the photograph.
Bakewell.—A spiral staircase in the wall adjoining the north-east pier
of the central tower stood practically undisturbed until the rebuilding
of the piers in 1841. It was entered from the south-east corner of
the north transept, and would in all probability have served for the
rood-stair when the rood-loft came to be introduced. The oak parclose
which shuts off the east aisle of the south transept to form the Vernon
chapel, is divided by the columns of the arcade into three sections.
Each of these is 11 ft. 7 in. long by 8 ft. 5½ in. high (exclusive of
the modern cornice), and consists of eight rectagonal compartments
centring from 1 ft. 4¾ in. to 1 ft. 5½ in. The openings are 4 ft. 3½
in. high, with Early Perpendicular tracery in the heads to the depth of
1 ft. 0½ in. The cill of each compartment shows traces of having been
guarded by two stanchions, no longer existing. The lower part of the
screen is 4 feet high. The rail is carved with a wave pattern, with a
trefoiled circle in each trough and swell, and a band of quatrefoils
runs along the base. The upper half of the panels below the rail is
perforated with a pattern like a square-headed traceried window of the
period. The greater muntins have shafts, with polygonal bases. The
screen is left, in midland fashion, unfinished at the back. The two
midmost compartments of the southernmost section form the doors.
Belper.—In 1821 the chancel of St. John Baptist chapel was separated
from the nave “by a plain screen composed of small arches and round
columns of wood.” The screen itself eventually disappeared, but long
afterwards the marks remained in the walls showing where it had been
fixed.
Bolsover.—A new organ-chamber, built in 1878, was eloquently described
as having “dwarfed the old chancel and spoilt the north aspect of the
church.” The ruin which the “restoration” of the above year began, an
accidental fire in 1897 completed.
Brackenfield.—The rood-screen from the old, ruined chapel, built
in 1520–30, now stands in the modern church. It has suffered much,
not only from exposure to the weather in the interval between the
dismantling of the chapel and the transfer of the screen itself to
its present position at the west end of the new building, but also
from excessive repair (see illustration). The screen measures 16 ft.
9 in. long by 7 ft. 7 in. high. It is rectagonal in construction, and
consists of a central bay divided into two lights above the lintel
of the doorway; on either hand of the latter being two bays of three
lights each. The head of all the lights is occupied to the depth of
10½ in. by tracery of Decorated design, coarsely executed, with
heavy cusps and crockets. The openings of the bays are 4 ft. 5½ in.
high; the bays centring from 3 ft. to 3 ft. 2½ in. The lesser muntins
are arrested by the cill, the panels beneath which are wanting. The
cornice and principal muntins are rudely moulded. The door has a clear
opening of 3 ft. 1 in., and is 5 ft. 8 in. high to the crown of the
four-centred arch of the lintel. One of the spandrils of the latter is
carved with the arms of Willoughby and Beck impaled. From a drawing
which is hung up, _ad captandum vulgus_, inside the building, it
appears that a project is on foot to adapt this ancient screen to the
chancel entrance of the modern church. And, as though the unfortunate
screen had not suffered cruelly enough already, the scheme involves its
further dismemberment by cutting out the doorway in the centre, and
mounting it on the top of a fresh doorway as a scaffold for a novel and
Christless cross. It is earnestly to be hoped that those in power will
not have the money nor the unwisdom to inflict this last unwarrantable
indignity on the venerable screen of Brackenfield chapel.
[Illustration: Brackenfield: Detail of Oak Rood-Screen from Dismantled
Chapel.]
Breadsall.—In 1826 the rood-screen is known to have been standing in
its original place, defining the boundary of nave and chancel. It
was then much dilapidated, “the centre portions of the ornamental
work thereof being entirely gone.” It is not quite clear whether
by the parts referred to as missing, the entrance gates or the
traceried fenestration-heads are meant. At any rate, a drawing made
thirty years later, and published in the Anastatic Drawing Society’s
volume for 1856, howsoever inaccurate in detail, shows what had
then become of the remains of the rood-screen. Though much of the
delicate feathering is omitted from the pierced tracery ornament,
the main outline unmistakably identifies it as having been made
up into communion rails. And it is doubtless to this circumstance
that the beautiful details of the rood-screen, when once taken down
from its proper position, owe their preservation. Such as they were
represented in 1856, they remained at least as late as 1877, when the
church itself was “restored.” The removal, about the year 1360, of the
chancel arch, the structural demarcation between nave and chancel,
had rendered a rood-screen æsthetically indispensable. And so, when
this prominent ornament was broken up—some time between 1830 and
1840, more probably at the former date—it left a blank so unsightly
that at the “restoration” of 1877 a misdirected attempt to remedy the
defect was made by the insertion of a paltry, sham-Gothic arch. At
the same time the ancient levels of the building were falsified by
the improper raising of the chancel floor. In 1877, “many parts of
the base” of the ancient screen could “be detected in the pews of the
body of the church.” Subsequently, all these fragments were collected,
and, together with those portions of the screen that had been turned
into communion rails, carefully stored up with a view to ultimate
reconstruction. Meanwhile, however, a few strips of screen-tracery were
ill-advisedly worked up into a cornice round the brim of the present
pulpit, a situation for which, as anybody can see, they are in no
wise suited. The restoration of the screen itself was contemplated as
far back as 1877, but thirty years were destined to elapse before it
could be realised. The project had long been dear to the heart of Mr.
F. Walker Cox, though he did not live to see it fulfilled; and so,
when he died in 1905, it was decided to restore the rood-screen as a
suitable memorial to him. The work was completed by the end of July,
1907. In this case there were certain well-determined data to serve
as guides for the proposed reconstruction. The width of the nave, 23
feet, had only to be divided by the unit of the bays (the remaining
tracery of which demonstrated that the average centring was rather
less than 2 ft. 6 in.) to show that there should be ten bays in all;
while the tread of the topmost step of the rood-stair, which pierces
the arcade wall and opens southwards into the nave at a height of
13 ft. 0½ in. above the floor level, indicates the proper height of
the ancient rood-loft floor. Each bay is divided into two lights by
a central muntin. The tracery resembles Decorated design more than
Perpendicular, but certain very late details in the spandril of the
ancient gates, the design of which otherwise corresponds, preclude the
work from being dated earlier than the first quarter of the sixteenth
century. Of the twenty pieces of tracery in the fenestration-heads, ten
are original and untouched, five are old ones repaired, while five had
to be supplied altogether new; the necessary carved work being ably
done by Mr. H. W. Whitaker, son of the rector. There are two variations
in the tracery pattern which runs along the west side of the rail. The
heads of the rectagonal panels are filled with tracery to the depth of
6¾ inches.
[Illustration: Breadsall Church: Detail of Rood-Screen in Process of
Restoration.]
[Illustration: Breadsall Church: Showing the Remains of the Rood-Screen
in 1856.]
Chaddesden.—The church was “restored” in 1859, when, I presume, it was
that the rood-screen came to be surmounted by an embattled cornice. At
the recent “restoration,” by Mr. Bodley, the battlements were removed,
and the upper part of the screen finished more in accordance with the
original design, with vaulting, on the western front The authentic
portion of the screen is 9 ft. 11 in. high by 15 ft. 9 in. long. It
consists of eight bays, of which the two central ones go to form the
entrance, having an opening of 3 ft. 3½ in., the bays centring at 1
ft. 11½ in. The openings are 5 ft. 7½ in. high, with tracery in the
heads to a depth of 3 feet, _i.e._, 21 inches lower than the level
of the springing. The entrance has a semi-circular arch, cusped on
the under side. The bottom part of the screen is 4 ft. 3½ in. high,
with blind tracery in the panel heads to the depth of 12½ inches. On
the west side the principal muntins are buttressed, the buttresses
square in plan, with moulded bases; out of the top of the buttresses
rise boutel shafts, with polygonal and embattled caps, from which the
groined vaulting springs. The rood-screen stands at the entrance of the
chancel, and the rood-loft must have extended only from side to side of
the nave. The rood-stair entrance, now stopped and bricked up, is in
the north-east corner of the south aisle. The doorway is 18 in. wide
by 6 ft. 7 in. high from the floor to the crown of the arch, or obtuse
angle, which is cut in the underside of the lintel. The exit from the
stair on to the loft, though blocked, is traceable in the wall in the
easternmost spandril of the south arcade of the nave.
Chesterfield.—The rood-loft is recorded to have been extant as late
as the year 1783. There is not the slightest trace of a rood-stair
entrance visible. In 1841, Sir Stephen Glynne found the nave galleried
completely round, including the eastern part of it. “The gallery,” he
says, “at the eastern extremity contains the organ.... In the gallery
beneath the organ is incorporated a portion of wood screenwork of
rather elegant character,” all which goes to show that the rood-screen
stood at the western crossing, the arch there having a clear opening
of 14 ft. 2½ in. In 1843, the “restoration” of the church was begun;
and the building having first been thoroughly swept of its fittings,
Mr. Gilbert Scott (afterwards knighted) was then called in to do
the garnishing. “I found,” he writes in his _Recollections_, “the
rood-screen to have been pulled down and sold; but we protested, and
it was recovered.” In a footnote he adds, “There is no such screen now
in Chesterfield church.” In this, as happily the event proved, the
architect was mistaken, but his remark would seem to imply that Sir
Gilbert Scott himself is not to be held responsible for the rood-screen
being improperly re-erected in its present position between the north
transept and its eastern chapel. The screen is 14 ft. 6 in. long, and
consists of five bays, centring 2 ft. 10½ in., of which the middle bay,
having a clear opening of 2 ft. 5¼ in., comprises the doorway. It is
fitted with doors, but they are not original. Indeed, the screen as a
whole has been much renovated. The total height of it as it stands is
13 ft. 3½ in. down to the floor. The fenestration openings are 7 ft.
3 in. high, and the pierced tracery in the head extends to a depth of
21½ inches, and contains an embattled transom, which makes a horizontal
line right across the screen from side to side. At a distance of 1
ft. 11 in. below the base of the tracery a second transom intersects
the screen, not, however, continuously, on account of the doorway in
the middle. The bays, though fashioned in rectagonal compartments,
exhibit a pronouncedly arched formation, which suggests that they
should be vaulted. At the same time the spandrils are traceried and
cusped, a feature inconsistent with vaulting, and such, therefore, that
I am inclined to attribute to the meddling hand of the “restorer.”
It only remains to add that the principal muntins are buttressed
on the westward front, and that the tracery has the usual midland
characteristic of a flat surface at the back.
[Illustration: Chesterfield Church: Part of Parclose Screen in South
Transept.]
More complete than the above-named is the imposing parclose which
stands in the south transept, and, extending throughout the entire
length of the transept, divides it for the two chantry chapels to
eastwards. These chapels were dedicated to Our Lady and St George
respectively, while against the westward face of the screen stood the
altar of St Michael on the left, and that of St Mary Magdalene on the
right. The screen consists of ten bays, four-centred; the third bay
from either end forming a doorway to lead into the corresponding chapel
beyond it. The bays vary in centring from 3 ft 4½ in. to 4 ft. 1 in.
The upper part of the screen expands eastwards and westwards with
groined vaults (partly renovated, the interspaces traceried on the
west side but plain on the east) into a wide platform of from 5 to 6
feet from front to back, and such that was apparently never finished
with a loft. The elevation of the whole (exclusive of a stone plinth
of 4½ inches) is 15 feet in height. The fenestration is strikingly
lofty, the distance from the cill to the summit of the opening being
8 ft. 6 in., with tracery in the head to the depth of 26 inches. The
base of this tracery descends 10 inches below the level of the caps
and the springing of the vaults. The tracery itself is of handsome
Perpendicular design, and is enriched with tall, crocketed pinnacles
running up through the midst of the batement lights. The opening is
sub-divided horizontally, at a distance of 49 inches from the crown
of the arch, by a transom cusped and feathered on its under side. The
solid part of the screen is 4 ft. 7 in. high. The rail is carved with a
waving tracery pattern; the blind panelling is traceried in the head,
and has a band of quatrefoil ornament along the bottom. The principal
muntins are faced with clustered shafts. The more northern of the two
doorways, with Tudor roses in the spandrils and cinquefoil cusping on
the under side, is original, but the other doorway is an unsatisfactory
piece of patch work.
With regard to the third screen, Sir Gilbert Scott, in the above-quoted
_Recollections_, wrote: “There existed in the church, as I found it, a
curious and beautiful family pew and chapel, enclosed by screenwork,
to the west of one of the piers of the central tower. This was called
the Foljambe chapel, and was a beautiful work of Henry VIII.’s time.
What to do with it I did not know. It was right in the way of the
arrangements, and could not but have been removed. I at last determined
to use its screenwork to form a reredos.” Such is the “restorer’s”
frank and ingenuous confession of his wanton abuse of a grand,
historical monument. The remains of this chantry parclose (its openwork
still disfigured by metal panels painted with the Ten Commandments,
according to the fashion of the day, _circa_ 1843–5) were forced to
migrate once more in 1898, and now (March, 1907) stand against the
west wall of the south transept. The screenwork is rectagonal in plan.
As at present made up it is just under 22 feet long, and consists
of six compartments, centring from 3 ft. 6½ in. to 3 ft. 8 in., of
three lights each. The openings are 3 ft. 7 in. high, with stem-like
tracery in the head to the depth of 9½ inches. The upper part is coved,
projecting 35 inches from back to front. The total height from the
top of the cresting to the ground just exceeds eight feet. The solid
part below the openings has apparently been cut down, since it is only
2 ft. 11 in. high. The rail is carved with a band of quatrefoils and
trefoils in the alternate swell and trough of a wave line, and the
blind panelling is traceried in the head to the depth of 5 inches. The
cornice is elaborately carved with a grape and vine pattern on a wave
basis, with shields introduced; the band itself, however, absurdly
turned upside down. It displays the following seven distinct coats
of arms, which appear by themselves and in various combinations of
impalement:—
Ashton A mullet.
Breton A chevron between three escallops.
Bussex Barry of six (represented as seven).
Foljambe A bend between six escallops.
Leeke On a saltire (not represented, as it ought to be,
engrailed), nine annulets.
Loudham On a bend, five cross crosslets.
Nevile A saltire ermine.
That the screens now standing do not represent the full complement of
screenwork with which Chesterfield Church was enriched when the shock
of the Reformation fell upon it, is attested by additional fragments of
tracery, one of them let into the underpart of a communion table in the
south-east chapel, and more in a low rail about the site of the former
high altar.
Church Broughton.—In 1820, portions of the parcloses that used to
shut off the chantries or side altars at the end of the aisles still
existed; but in 1845–6 the church was “repaired,” with the usual result
that the screens were dismembered. Considerable remains, however, of
the oak tracery are embodied in a modern reredos behind the altar.
Crich.—The screen which is now in St. Peter’s, Derby, and which was
originally in Crich church, is constructed on a rectagonal principle,
that is to say, it was never vaulted. It consists of six compartments,
each having an average opening of 13 inches and an average centring of
1 ft. 5 in. The height of the fenestration from the cill to the top of
the opening is 58 inches, the head being occupied to the depth of 12½
inches by pierced tracery of Perpendicular design, with an embattled
transom intersecting it in a straight line from side to side. The
screen itself is divided into two halves, each 4 ft. 4 in. long, and
each having, immediately below the cill, a pierced panel of cusped
tracery of trellis-like design, 3 ft. 10 in. long by 6¾ in. high. For
the rest, seeing that the screen has been made up for its present
position, to give the dimensions of its total height and length would
only be to mislead.
Denby.—“A rudely carved screen between nave and chancel”—such was
the description given of it in 1825—was swept away in the atrocious
“restoration” of 1838.
Derby.—It is piteous to recall with what reckless devastation the
mediæval churches of the borough of Derby have been visited. The
fate of All Hallows’ has been already told. Another of the ancient
churches of the place, St. Alkmund’s, was destroyed in 1844. Its
former rood-loft, to judge from the ground plan of the building, must
have extended across the width of the nave only. It has been related
by those who knew the old church, that the tower, together with the
westernmost bay of either aisle of the nave, were divided by screening
from the remainder of the building. What these screens were like
records do not state, but it is probable enough that they may have been
made out of the remains of the rood-screen or parclose screenwork. St.
Michael’s Church, totally demolished in 1856–7, contained a carved
screen of Perpendicular workmanship. The rood-entrance and staircase
led up to the loft from the south aisle. At St. Peter’s tradition
tells that a parclose formerly separated the eastern portion of the
north aisle from the body of the church; and remnants of wooden screen
work were discovered under the flooring of the pews at the re-pewing
in 1859. The screen which now occupies the place of the original
rood-screen, belonging, as it did, to Crich church, has been already
described under that head.
Doveridge.—In 1877 it was observed that three pieces of carving known
to have come from hence, and suspected to have belonged to the former
screen here, were affixed to the chest in Sudbury church. These pieces
comprised the centrepiece on the front of the chest, and the ornaments
on the two sides of it.