Memorials of old Derbyshire

by Unknown

Kirk Langley Church: Detail of Former Rood-Screen in Oak, XIV. Century Work.

The remarks which follow should be understood to apply to screens which are true timberwork, alike in motif as in material. In structure and proportions, Derbyshire screens for the most part assimilate to the midland type, as exemplified at Newark and Strelley, in Nottinghamshire, or Wormleighton, in Warwickshire, and as distinguished from that of the south and west of England and Wales. That is to say, not a few of them rise to a stately height, with remarkably lofty fenestration; the latter being, in some instances, narrow even to attenuation. Thus the rood-screen at Breadsall, as far as can be judged by what remains of it, notably illustrates this peculiarity; in which regard it affords a striking parallel to the screenwork at Newark church before-mentioned.

But it is rather in parclose screens that this feature of excessive elongation is more especially in evidence. To counteract its ungainly appearance, without at the same time diminishing the extent of the aperture, resort is had in the principal screens at Chesterfield to the device of a transom to divide the fenestration about midway. This horizontal member, being feathered underneath, not only enhances the decorative character of the screenwork by the added effect of a lower tier of tracery-headed lights, but also makes for structural strength by providing a latitudinal junction from muntin to muntin.

Another point of similarity between Derbyshire rood-screens and the typical midland screens at (e.g., at Somerton, in Oxfordshire; Blore, in Staffordshire; Wormleighton, in Warwickshire; and Strelley, in Nottinghamshire), and of divergence between the former and southern examples, is that, where the design comprises vaulting, the springing of the ribs is not necessarily in line with the cord or base of the pierced tracery of the bay-heads (as is practically the rule for it to be in Kent, Devonshire, and Somerset), but at a higher level, sometimes with a discrepancy of nearly two feet between the two levels. The result of this arrangement is not altogether happy. For traceried ornament that extends below the limits of a tympanum, failing to define the springing-point, tends to make the vaulting itself look dwarfed and curtailed. For the latter to show to best advantage, the ribs should have an obvious correspondence with the sweep of the fenestration arch from spring to crown. Wherever it is otherwise, a sense of lack of homogeneity between the parts cannot but be felt.

Another feature which Derbyshire screens share in common with other midland screenwork, is the very usual inequality which the traceried fenestration-heads present on the obverse and reverse. In the south and east of England both surfaces are almost invariably carved and moulded with identical design and equal completeness; so that if I met with a detached portion of church screen tracery anywhere in Kent, for instance, I should at once know by its treatment to what part of a screen it belonged. For the back would only be smooth and unmoulded if it had been intended to fit flat against blind panelling in the lower half of a screen, and vice versâ. But Derbyshire tracery, as a rule, does not furnish such indications; and so, unless the design bore the outline of an arch, and were therefore unmistakably intended, like the Breadsall example illustrated, for the upper part of a vaulted screen, it would be next to impossible to determine its place in the composition. For even à jour tracery, meant to be looked at from either side, is usually plain and flat on one surface, as in the case of the parclose at Elvaston (see left-hand distance in the illustration), and that also at Fenny Bentley. The rood-screens at the latter church and at Ashover are both of them instances in which the upper traceries are enriched with the addition of crocketed ornament on the westward side, while they are plain and smooth on the chancel side.

In some screens, again, though the upper tracery is not indeed quite flat at the back, there is yet a marked difference between the degree of elaboration on the two surfaces. Thus in the tracery of the rood-screen at Elvaston, the western face, besides being moulded, is further embellished with crockets and finials, carved in bold relief, in some compartments handsomely fretted and deeply undercut, and altogether remarkably rich and varied in character (see illustration of detail); while the side towards the east is uniformly treated with simple moulding only. At Chaddesden the contrast between the east and west faces respectively of the upper part of the rood-screen is still greater. In this particular case a difference of treatment is necessarily entailed by the somewhat unusual plan on which the screen itself is constructed; the overhanging rood-loft (now, of course, no longer in existence) having been carried upon the naveward side by groined vaulting, and by a cove, instead of vaulting to correspond, towards the chancel. The spandrils, therefore, covered by the vaulting on the west side are exposed on the other, and present a series of solid triangles, which would have been bare and unsightly without applied ornament. All of these, then, together with the reverse of the transom in the two central bays and of the muntin between them, cut short by the entrance arch, are decorated with low relief carving entirely unlike the front. Moreover, although the muntins on either side are buttressed, the buttresses on the west terminate, as is usual in the case of vaulted screens, with boutels and caps for the springing of the groins; upon the east side, on the contrary, the buttresses continue nearly to the top, tapering off as they approach the lintel into graceful crocketed pinnacles.

The only recorded instances known to me of the occurrence of painting or gilding on Derbyshire screenwork (with the exception of the Parwich beam referred to hereafter), are those of the rood-screens at Ashover and Norbury, and of a parclose which divided the chancel from the north chapel at Mugginton, and which had fifteen coats of arms blazoned in colours upon it. The screen itself has long since vanished, but the account of it is preserved among the Harleian manuscripts in the report of Richard St. George’s Heraldic Visitation taken in the year 1611. As a rule, the sort of ornament to be found upon screenwork (except in the case of panels decorated with figures, of which Derbyshire, unless I have been mistaken, furnishes no examples) is of so essentially abstract, and, so to speak, non-committal a character, that the enemies of screens are seldom able, with any pretence of reason, to avail themselves of the pleas put forward by iconoclasts as a matter of principle.

Elvaston Church: Detail of Rood-Screen.

A small and feathered angel is introduced in the carved work above the doorway of the rood-screen at Elvaston; and there are some exceptionally fine half-length figures of angels along the top of one of the screens at Chesterfield. The particular screen that this carving rests upon (now turned, though it is, into a parclose between the north transept and its eastern chapel) is known to have been the ancient rood-screen in Chesterfield church, and to have stood in its place until about 1843, not long subsequently to which time it was re-erected in the position it now occupies.