Memorials of old Derbyshire

by Unknown

Some of them have been shifted from their original positions and made up afresh, others have been cut short or otherwise maltreated and defaced; but, for all that, it is not too much to say that there is not a county in the kingdom can boast as magnificent a series of parclose screens as this one still possesses, in more or less perfect condition, in the respective churches of Ashbourne, Bakewell, Chesterfield, Elvaston, and Kirk Langley. The exquisite parclose which runs the whole length of the south transept at Chesterfield, with its vaulted cornice, rather resembles a rood-screen. The truly characteristic variety of parcloses, however, should be sought, not at Chesterfield, but at Ashbourne, Bakewell, Elvaston, and Sawley. A peculiarity common to all four is the pierced tracery panelling of the lower half of the screen. In each case, except in the Bakewell parclose, it takes the form of a horizontal band of ornament immediately beneath the rail or cill of the fenestration. Such is the feature which, as I submit, constitutes the speciality of parcloses as distinguished from rood-screens. And it is just because of its being present also in the screenwork now made up into a chancel-screen at St. Peter’s, Derby, that I am disinclined to believe that this particular screen was designed in the first place for a purpose other than that of a parclose.

Elvaston Church: Parclose Screen in the South Aisle.

The history of this screen has not been uneventful. It is well known to have belonged formerly to the church at Crich, and to have been ejected from thence at the devastating “restoration” which befel in 1861. Conveyed to a timber-merchant’s yard, for awhile it lay there awaiting a ruin that seemed imminent, until the late Rev. W. Hope, at that time vicar of St. Peter’s, fortunately saw it, acquired it, and set it up, repaired and remodelled, in its present position. To return, now, for a moment to the matter of Crich church. It is on record that there were two chantries founded here by William de Wakebridge in the fourteenth century. The one, receiving episcopal licence in 1357, was situated in the north aisle; the other, in 1368, at Our Lady’s altar, which may be presumed to have occupied a corresponding position in the south aisle. Both of these chantries would eventually, according to the prevailing Derbyshire custom, have been surrounded with parclose screenwork. Of the remains of that which stood in the north aisle, the heraldic painter, Bassano, and also J. Reynolds, took note when they visited Crich church, the first in 1710, the second in 1758. I do not gather, however, that either of them recorded the existence of a rood-screen there. This negative evidence on their part is too significant to be set aside, and so, commonly though it is stated that the screen at St. Peter’s, Derby, is identical with the ancient rood-screen of Crich church, I am not convinced. I can more readily suppose that the Rev. W. Hope was too thankful at having secured so authentic a relic of antiquity to spend time in prosecuting any very searching inquiry as to the precise nature of the office it might have fulfilled in days gone by; but that, seeing his own church was bare of a rood-screen, he very naturally adapted the screen which he had become possessed of to supply the deficiency, although comparative study of the design and formation of Derbyshire screens in general might have led him, as it has led me, to conclude that this one from Crich could not originally have been a rood-screen.

Neither, again, may the apparent exception, which the chancel-screen in Haddon Hall chapel affords, be adduced. For, though it is true that to-day visitors to Haddon find, beneath the fenestration cill on either half of the screen there, a band of Gothic tracery—authentic, if of a somewhat flamboyant type—which fits its position plausibly enough, the view of the chapel by George Cattermole, lithographed by S. Rayner, and published in 1839, while agreeing in every other particular with the present unchanged aspect of the place, shows no ornament here at all. The panels were still without tracery when, between 1880 and 1885, a photograph of the interior was taken, which is reproduced in the third volume of The Abbey Square Sketch Book; and the Rev. Dr. Cox possesses a coloured sketch, dated 1898, which does not differ in this regard from the earlier representations. But in either event the screen at Haddon, whether traceried or plain, is no case in point, for the simple reason that the panelling itself is blind. In order to be analogous to the parcloses at Ashbourne, Elvaston, and Sawley, it would need to be perforated.

As far as I have been able to ascertain, the following are the churches which contain the most notable parclose screens:—Ashbourne, Bakewell, Chesterfield, Darley Dale (stone), Elvaston, Fenny Bentley (moved from its place), Kirk Langley (portions made up), and Sawley (the lower parts only of two parcloses); while, if not now, there existed anciently, or there are believed to have existed, parcloses at Alkmonton hospital chapel, Ashover, Chelmorton (stone), Church Broughton, Crich, old St. Alkmund’s, and old All Hallows’ and St. Peter’s in Derby, Horsley, Longford, Longstone, Mugginton, Norbury, Radburne, Tideswell, Weston-on-Trent, and Youlgreave. But all this on the subject of parcloses is to anticipate.

Ilkeston Church: Stone Rood-Screen, from the Chancel.

The earliest surviving screenwork in Derbyshire does not date back any earlier than the beginning of the fourteenth century, and is, as might be expected, of stone. Of this material, the most imposing specimen is the rood-screen at Ilkeston, and that notwithstanding the excessive “restorations” it has had to undergo at various times, particularly in 1855—ordeals out of which it has emerged in a very different condition from that which it must originally have presented. The upper part has been scraped and renovated; the columns smoothed and repolished. And as for the lower part, one can only say that to afford any effective protection to the chancel it must have been something far more substantial than the gaunt skeleton framework it is at the present day. The screen occupies the opening from the nave into the chancel. It consists of an arcade of five arches, which, cinquefoil-cusped and having pierced quatrefoils in the spandrils, spring from cylindrical columns of grey marble, with circular moulded caps and bases. These again rise from a horizontal moulded rail, supported on similar columns; the whole standing upon a stone plinth. The mouldings and capitals of the columns (some of which only are original) have an Early English appearance, but the main part of the screen is of later style. The markedly ogival form of the doorhead betokens a fairly developed phase of Decorated. Along the top of the screen runs a simple coping ridge, which, if not the original, represents well enough the type of finish a screen of the period would have had in the days before the introduction of rood-lofts into parish churches. The doorway centres 4 ft. 2½ in., with a clear opening of 3 ft. 10 in.; the side bays having an average centring of 3 ft. 2½ in. The total height of the screen, as at present made up, is 14 ft. 6 in., a dimension greatly disproportionate to its comparatively short length of 17 ft. 4½ in. It may be explained that the photograph was taken from the chancel in order to avoid the halation of the east window, both sides of the screen being alike.

The stone rood-screen at Chelmorton, if less ancient than the foregoing by some thirty or forty years, is the more interesting, because it has been allowed to retain its original form almost untouched. The screen stands in the chancel arch (12 ft. 6 in. wide), and consists of two parts, having a clear opening of four feet between them. The northern half measures 4 ft. 3½ in. long, the southern half one inch less. The motif is that of an embattled wall, 6 ft. 6 in. high, with a pierced band of quatrefoils to the depth of twenty inches from the level of the top, and, beneath, blind panelling of trefoil-headed ogival arches. The screen wall being flat on its upper surface, might well have afforded a foundation for timber screenwork above it; for owing to the rise of the ground towards the east, the chancel floor is three steps higher than that of the nave, and consequently the screen has but a moderate elevation on its eastward side. There is, however, no sign of any mortice holes visible in it. Built into the wall of the porch is a slab of stone, sculptured with quatrefoils, which was dug up under the floor, and is conjectured to have formed part of a parclose, matching the rood-screen and screening of the south transept for a chantry chapel.