Memorials of old Derbyshire

by Unknown

Neither are the above-named cases themselves without parallel. It is recorded that there was in the nave (19 ft. 10 in. wide) of the old church at Parwich (pulled down in 1872) a sort of rood-loft projection similar in construction to that at Wingerworth, and that in the course of demolition the ends of four stout, squared timbers were taken out of the masonry about two feet above the crown of the Norman chancel-arch, a low-pitched one like (although, being more richly ornamented, of later date than) the Wingerworth example itself.

Owing to the scarcity of wills, churchwardens’ accounts, and such other documents as might have thrown light on the subject, the exact date of the introduction of the rood-loft cannot, in the case of the great majority of churches in Derbyshire, be ascertained. At Elvaston church, in 1474, the first Lord Mountjoy left instructions for the carrying out of certain works, which would most likely have included the erection of a rood-loft there, though the latter is not named in the bequest. In fact, the earliest and only instance I know of in which the rood-loft was explicitly provided for, is the will of Sir Henry Vernon, of Haddon. The date of this document is 18th January, 1514, and the item in point runs: “I bequethe to the churche of Bakewell and to makying of the Rode lofte £6.” The will was proved on 5th May of the next year, 1515, not later than which date the testator’s wishes, so I assume, would be carried into execution.

I have already indicated how the general absence of aisles from the chancels of its churches drove chantry-founders in Derbyshire to occupy the space of the nave or nave aisles. But, more than that, it effectually checked the expansion of the rood-loft and screen, and confined them within the nave’s width. For wherever the eastern wall of an aisle, conterminous with the nave, is pierced by a window (instead of by an arch leading into a chapel beyond), it does not admit of either screen or loft being carried across it in continuation of the screen and loft in the nave. The only sure sign of the alternative plan having been adopted, i.e., of rood-loft having extended to the outer wall of the aisle, would be a rood-entrance in that outer wall. But such a sign I have not met with anywhere in Derbyshire. I searched for it in Chesterfield church, the plan of which, so it seemed to me, might have admitted the rood-loft being carried right across the building, including the aisles; but in vain. I cannot point to a single instance in a Derbyshire church of which it could be positively asserted that the rood-loft extended beyond the limit of the width of the nave.

The usual place for the rood-loft door and staircase in this county would appear to be either in the nave or in the inner corner of an aisle immediately adjacent to the nave. Such approaches, or traces of them, exist or are known to have existed at, among other churches, those of Ashbourne, Ashover, Aston, Bakewell, Barrow-upon-Trent, Breadsall, Chaddesden, Derby (old St. Michael’s), Kirk Langley, Monyash, Repton, Spondon, Tideswell, Wilne, North Wingfield, and Wingerworth. Nevertheless, as compared with other districts of England, Derbyshire cannot be reckoned among those counties in which rood-entrances and rood-stairs are of very common occurrence. However, where either they do survive or traces of them occur, they afford no exception to the normal dimensions of such structures. Indeed, in Derbyshire there are to be found rood-entrances as narrow as, if not even narrower than, anywhere else in the kingdom. Thus those at Chaddesden and Wingerworth measure each only eighteen inches wide.

In some cases the ascent starts abruptly at a very awkward height from the ground. For instance, at Ashover the lowest step of the rood-stair is 6 feet above the floor level; 6 ft. 3 in. at Wingerworth. Nor in either case is there any perceptible trace of the steps having descended lower towards the ground. For them to be reached, then, where they are, is a feat that could not be accomplished without the help of a ladder. In the case of Wingerworth, however, it is true that, as to whether the rood-stair originally terminated at its present distance from the floor, there is, for the following reasons, much uncertainty. The mother of one Arthur Mower, of Barlow, dying in 1574, and being buried in Wingerworth church, her son wrote down minute particulars of the site of her interment; and the old memorandum book, still extant, records how she “lyeth in the church in the north alley at the head of the alley on the north side, and her feet lieth as nigh of the north side of the grysse” (i.e., stair, from the Latin gressus) “that goeth up into the Rood-loft as may be.” Now nobody at the present day who wanted to be accurate—and the sole raison d’être of a memorandum like this is to preserve and hand down as trustworthy a record as possible—would dream of describing the feet of a body lying in the north-east corner of the north aisle as being close to the ascent of the rood-stair! To obviate the discrepancy, then, is one not forced to the conclusion that the rood-stair must have been somehow or other prolonged downwards in a northerly direction until it reached the ground at the spot indicated?

Rood-stairs, being no longer required once the lofts had been overthrown, have met with shameful neglect, often with violent maltreatment. In some cases they have been allowed to survive only through having been turned into cupboards for brooms and ladders, gas meters, or water cisterns; but, nevertheless, after full allowance is made for rood-stairs that formerly were and now have perished, there is still left a large percentage of Derbyshire churches in which no permanent stone stairs can be supposed to have existed. In such cases, unless there was a fixed wooden staircase, access must have been obtained by no better means than a ladder the whole way from floor to loft. The practical inconvenience of this proceeding, together with the narrow dimensions of rood-doors and stairs—while their builders were constructing them, it would in most cases have been just as easy to make them half a dozen or so inches wider had there been any occasion—affords corroborative evidence of the impossibility of parochial rood-lofts having been used, or designed to be used, for ceremonial purposes by the officiants at divine service.

In Derbyshire, as elsewhere, ornamental treatment, either of rood-stair entrance or of rood-door itself, is so abnormal as to call, wherever such does occur, for notice. Ashbourne church may be said to furnish an instance in point. There, in the southern transept, the south-east pier of the central tower contains a staircase, which, though constructed doubtless contemporaneously with the building of the tower itself, and, therefore, anterior to the general introduction of rood-lofts, would certainly have served to give access to the rood-loft as soon as ever that adjunct was provided at Ashbourne church. The door, then (see illustration), may not unjustly be ranked among rare examples of ornamented rood-doors. Under a moulded label, terminating on the left in a sculptured head that cannot strictly claim to be an authentic product of the period, stands this handsome oak door of late thirteenth century workmanship. It is divided vertically into two ogival-headed panels, and is enriched with wrought-iron bands and hinges, in a very fair state of preservation, although it is to be regretted that their elegant contour is partly hidden by a clumsy modern timber lining inserted into the masonry opening.

It cannot have escaped the notice of attentive observers how often the steps of rood-stairs in parish churches have been trodden into hollows, as though they had been subjected to much wear and tear. Such must, indeed, have been very constant to have left its mark thus pronouncedly upon rood-stairs, and that, too, in the comparatively short period of their use—in many cases, of not above, perhaps, a hundred years’ duration—between the date of their erection and of the Reformation changes, which sent them back again into disuse. Some other explanation, then, more convincing and more in accord with the evidence of fact than the suggestion of a mere ceremonial function in the rood-loft on special occasions, must be adduced to account for the regular employment of the rood-stair. That the lay folk, being many, rather than the officiant minister and his clerks, being few, were they who trod the stairs leading into the parochial rood-loft, is evident. The main function of the rood-loft in parish churches was to accommodate singers, musicians, and their instruments. Again, it should be borne in mind that very often (as churches, for example, like Ashover, Old Brampton, Edensor, Staveley, Tideswell, and Wingerworth attest) a sacring-bell hung in the eastern gable of the nave, or (as in cruciform churches like that of Ashbourne) in the central tower, in either event immediately above the rood-loft. Than the latter, then, there was no better position that the sacrist could be placed in; the rood-loft affording him an excellent vantage-ground from which to keep an eye upon the movements of a priest saying mass at any altar in the building, and to summon the people at the bidding of the bell when the right moment came for them to raise their eyes and worship the uplifted Host.

Ashbourne Church: Door leading to the Rood-Stair.