Part 13

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.

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_.”

The rood-loft across the east end of the nave was approached from the 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.