Part 14

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.”

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.

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.

WORKSOP (anciently Radford).--Priory of Austin Canons, surrendered 31st October 1538, the nave becoming thenceforward exclusively parochial. The churchwardens’ accounts furnish an interesting record of the various changes effected in the screening arrangements. In the year 1546–47 occurred payments to one Thomas Rose for “makyng hols for the parrtycyon at 5d. the day” for two days and a half; to one Elot for three days and a half “at makyng vp of the partycyon at the same rate,” and to one William Doncaster “at syche lyck warke.” The “parclose of Jesus quere with the lawft (loft) wher they sange” were sold for 3s. in the same year. During the reign of Edward VI. two carvers were employed in setting up the new parclose and also in “settyng vp the old parcloses and makyng a lytell voute” (vault); and a painter was paid 8d. for washing (_i.e._ whitewashing) the rood-loft. The rood-images were first ill-treated by darkening their faces, and subsequently taken down altogether. They were replaced under Queen Mary, and again removed after Elizabeth had come to the throne (1559–60). In the same year the rood-loft was white-washed once more; it was taken down in 1564. In 1570, however, further items relating to the same were entered in the accounts:--Workmen at the taking down of the rood-loft received 2d.; the painter 8d. “for payntyng the rode-lofte before yt was takyn downe.” The vicar purchased the timber of the loft for 6s. 8d. A subsequent expenditure of 3s. 2d. “for makyng of a creste for the roode-lofte” in 1571 refers to the brattishing erected, according to royal mandate, along the top of the screen in place of the demolished rood-loft. And yet, still later, in 1637 a contractor covenanted to take down part of the loft.