Cruciform marks are sometimes found on our churches, often on a stone in the porch; they are usually incised crosses or five dots in the form of a cross. They were, presumably, cut by the bishop when the building was consecrated, and are called consecration crosses.

Screens.

The rood-screens, separating the chancel or choir of a church from the nave, usually supported the great Rood or Crucifix, not actually on the screen itself, but on a beam called the rood-beam, or by a gallery called the rood-loft, which last was approached from the inside of the church, by a small stone staircase in the wall, as can be seen in many of our churches to-day. Although rood-lofts have been generally destroyed in England, some beautiful examples remain at Long Sutton, Barnwell, Dunster and Minehead, Somerset; Kemsing, Kent; Newark, Nottingham; Uffendon, Collumpton, Dartmouth, Kenton, Plymtree and Hartland, Devon. The general construction of wooden screens is close panelling below, from which rise tall slender balusters, or wooden mullions supporting tracery rich with cornices and crestings, frequently painted and gilded. The lower panels often depict saints and martyrs. From the top of the screen certain parts of the services and the lessons were read. They were occasionally close together and glazed, as we see by a most beautiful example at Charlton-on-Otmoor, in Oxfordshire. These screens, many of which have been over-restored, are very common, and in addition to those above mentioned, are found at S. Mary's, Stamford, Ottery S. Mary, Chudleigh, Bovey, and in nearly all the Devon parish churches. At Dunstable a screen of Queen Mary's time separates the vestry from the chancel.

Screen with Rood Loft.
Kenton, Devon.
Photograph by Chapman.
Click to [ENLARGE]

Of stone screens space will permit of only the briefest mention. They were used in various situations, to enclose tombs and to separate chapels, and occasionally the rood-screen was of stone. The oldest piece of screen work in this country is that at Compton Church, Surrey; it is of wood and shows the transition from the Norman to the Early English styles.

The Carved Oak Balustrade in
Compton Church.
Held to be the oldest existing piece
of carved woodwork in England.

Stone screens are often massive structures enriched with niches, statues, tabernacles, pinnacles, crestings, etc., as those at Canterbury, York and Gloucester.

The Reredos.

The reredos forms no part of the altar, and is often highly enriched with niches, buttresses, pinnacles, and other ornaments. Not infrequently it extends across the whole breadth of the church, and is sometimes carried nearly up to the roof, as at S. Alban's Abbey, Durham and Gloucester Cathedrals, S. Saviour's, Southwark and in that remarkably fine example at Christchurch, Hants. In village churches they are mostly very simple, and generally have no ornaments formed in the wall, though niches and corbels are sometimes provided to carry images, and that part of the wall immediately over the altar is panelled, as at S. Michael's, Oxford; Solihull, Warwickshire; Euston and Hanwell, Oxfordshire, etc.