Memorials of old Derbyshire

by Unknown

The renewal of the west gallery at Tideswell church in 1824, and the erection of that at Sawley in 1838, or that at Beeston as late as 1840 (only, however, to be restored away again in 1871), brings the tradition of building organ-galleries down almost to the middle of the nineteenth century. Some, indeed, among those named in the above list continued in position as late as the seventies of the nineteenth century, that at Ashbourne even until 1882.

Between the earliest recorded instance of a gallery being built, in 1614, to the latest, in 1840, represents a lively stream of tradition, uninterrupted for just 220 years, until the influence of the Tractarian movement set the tide flowing in the contrary direction, and eventually succeeded in compassing the doom of the old-fashioned organ-gallery altogether. The responsibility rests not with Puritans, but with the opposite party in the Church of England; and it is a sad, if edifying, commentary on the fallibility of human judgment that, at the very time when Holman Hunt was painting his mystical pre-Raphaelite picture of “Christ wounded in the House of His Friends,” the Tractarians—they, of all people!—were busy, from one end of England to the other, obliterating the last historic vestiges of the ancient rood-loft in our churches. If only these well-meaning men (and many others like them, down to the present time) had been content to restore literally rather than ostensibly; if, instead of introducing surpliced choirs into parochial churches where such a thing had never been known before in the whole course of their history; if, instead of dragging down the organ from its antique gallery where they found it into the main body of the building, and thereby displacing table-tombs and other memorials of the faithful departed; shutting out the glorious light of windows (as at Ashover), hiding their exquisite tracery, or, worse, positively thrusting out windows and overthrowing walls, and erecting externally (as at Ashover, Bolsover, Langwith, Littleover, Mackworth, South Normanton, and Spondon) counterfeit Gothic organ-chambers to accommodate this huge and vehement obstruction; if, instead of perpetrating all these innovations and disfigurements, they had simply been content to follow loyally the precedent of their forefathers, and had relegated organs and singers together to a gallery situated in the ancient place for them, viz., over the entrance to the chancel, how much heart-burning and division might have been avoided; how many a venerable church fabric, now irretrievably ruined in contour and proportions, might have been saved from injury, and have retained both in the original form in which they had come down to modern days, intact!

That which follows consists of additional particulars concerning the present subject, arranged, in alphabetical order, under the names of the various localities.

Alkmonton.—At this place, a township of Longford, was a hospital dedicated under the invocation of St. Leonard. Lord Mountjoy endowed it by will in 1474, at the same time directing that a quire and parclose screen should be erected in the chapel attached to the hospital. The institution was suppressed at the Reformation, and no remains whatever of the chapel and its screenwork survive.

Allestree.—The church was entirely rebuilt in 1866–7. The length of the ancient rood-loft, assuming that it did not exceed the width of the nave, would have been 19 ft. 3 in., the dimensions of the old church. For stone screenwork, supposed to have belonged to Allestree church, see supra.

Ashbourne.—The eastern aisle of the north transept is screened off from the rest of the transept and from the chancel, to form the Cockayne chapel. The screen, which runs from north to south, is divided by a column into two sections. The northern section is 14 ft. 3 in. long, and comprises eight compartments, including the entrance; the southern section is 14 ft. 8½ in. long, and comprises nine compartments. The section of the parclose which runs from west to east is 19 ft. long, and comprises eleven and a half compartments, including the gates, which open into the chancel. The total height of the screen is 8 ft. 10 in., the compartments varying in centring from 1 ft. 6 in. to 1 ft. 10½ in. The tracery in the heads (rectagonal in formation) measures 13½ in. deep at the deepest. The openings in the north to south section are 65 in. high, the lower part 3 ft. high; the openings in the west to east section 68 in. high, the lower part 33 in. high. Immediately below the rail, which is embattled, runs a horizontal panel of pierced quatrefoil tracery to the depth of 8½ inches. The screen is surmounted by a moulded cornice, with a cavetto, occupied at intervals by square pateras. The muntins are buttressed. The whole is of Perpendicular design of about the middle of the fifteenth century. Each compartment of the openings is protected by an iron stanchion and saddlebar; the stanchions being obviously modern, with cast-iron fleur-de-lys finials. The door which opens into the stair in the south-east pier of the central tower is 1 ft. 7 in. wide by 5 ft 9 in. high to the crown of its two centred arch. There is no sign of the door which opened into the rood-loft, but the stair leads to a passage which runs round all four sides of the tower at the crossing.

Ashover Church: Rood-Screen.

Ashover.—The rood-screen stands in the hollow order of the chancel arch, so that its westward face does not project beyond the level of the east wall of the nave. The screen stands 10 ft. 3 in. high by 13 ft. 7 in. long. It consists of six bays, of which the two midmost comprise the doorway, with an opening of 3 ft. 8 in. and a height of 6 ft. 11 in. to the crown of the depressed arch. The bays have an average centring of 27½ inches, the fenestration being 5 ft. 5 in. high from the cill to the crown of the arch, with tracery in the head to the depth of 20½ inches, that is, 11 inches lower than the level of the spring of the former vaulting. The cill is ornamented with flamboyant geometrical tracery. The solid part from the top of the cill to the ground is 3 ft. 6 in. high, with blind tracery to the depth of 8¾ inches in the head. The screen is without gates, and is surmounted by an embattled cresting, beneath which is a band of pierced quatrefoil ornament. Neither of these can be in its original position, the screen having formerly been vaulted, although the whole of the groining ribs, as well as the springing-caps and the bases, are now wanting. The carved lintel over the doorway is crested along the top, the spandrils being filled with Tudor roses. These, together with the four-centred arches of the bays, point to a late phase of Perpendicular. The coat of arms of Babington, impaling Fitzherbert, in the middle, being only fastened on where the vaulting ought to be, affords in itself no criterion as to the date; although the general style of the screen is entirely consistent with the tradition that it was the gift of Thomas Babington, who died in 1518. This screen originally was enriched with painting and gilding, the last traces of which were egregiously removed in 1843. This was the date, also, of the destruction of the remains of the handsomely carved parclose-screenwork which surrounded the Babington chantry in the easternmost bay of the south aisle. The parclose had a door opening into the nave and another into the aisle; and the coats of arms now attached to the rood-screen used to be respectively over these two doorways. The Babington chantry was founded in 1511, in which year the rood-screen and rood-loft are believed to have been erected. The rood-stair was blocked up at the “restoration” of 1843, but has since been reopened. What remains of it consists of six stone steps, starting in the south-east corner of the north aisle, and emerging through the easternmost spandril of the north arcade into the nave at a height of 10 ft. 10 in. from the floor. The rood-door opened naveward, two iron hangers still remaining in the south jamb of the doorway, which is 18½ in. wide by 5 ft. 8½ in. high. The door-head consists of a horizontal lintel. The rood-loft itself cannot have extended beyond the width of the nave, a length of 20 feet. The rope of the sacring-bell in the gable immediately above the loft is shown in the photograph.

Bakewell.—A spiral staircase in the wall adjoining the north-east pier of the central tower stood practically undisturbed until the rebuilding of the piers in 1841. It was entered from the south-east corner of the north transept, and would in all probability have served for the rood-stair when the rood-loft came to be introduced. The oak parclose which shuts off the east aisle of the south transept to form the Vernon chapel, is divided by the columns of the arcade into three sections. Each of these is 11 ft. 7 in. long by 8 ft. 5½ in. high (exclusive of the modern cornice), and consists of eight rectagonal compartments centring from 1 ft. 4¾ in. to 1 ft. 5½ in. The openings are 4 ft. 3½ in. high, with Early Perpendicular tracery in the heads to the depth of 1 ft. 0½ in. The cill of each compartment shows traces of having been guarded by two stanchions, no longer existing. The lower part of the screen is 4 feet high. The rail is carved with a wave pattern, with a trefoiled circle in each trough and swell, and a band of quatrefoils runs along the base. The upper half of the panels below the rail is perforated with a pattern like a square-headed traceried window of the period. The greater muntins have shafts, with polygonal bases. The screen is left, in midland fashion, unfinished at the back. The two midmost compartments of the southernmost section form the doors.