Orate pro anima Roberti de Whalley hujus collegii, qui hoc opus fieri fecit anno domini mcccccxxviii, cujus anima propicietur Deus. Amen.
He seems to have been buried beneath its archway.[104] But the work is evidently contemporaneous with the rest of the church, as shown especially by the staircase turret, and there is no trace whatever of any Renaissance feeling. Probably the inscription refers rather to some decoration, colour or the like, on the screen. It is curious that this screen possesses the only instance of cusped arches in the church.
Parish Chancel-screens
Simple—as the beginnings of all artistic work are—are the earliest chancel-screens of this country, and the progress from simple forms to the very rich and complex ones of the Perpendicular Period is as evident in wooden screen-work as it is in the history of tracery in stone. Probably the earliest wooden screen-work in the country exists in the Church of St. Nicholas, Compton, Surrey. The eastern end of this church, of Late Norman date, is in two storeys, the lower one forming the sanctuary, vaulted, and opening to the west with a rich Late Norman semicircular arch. Railing off the upper floor above this arch is a screen, consisting of a series of semicircular arches springing from cylindrical or octagonal shafts, with moulded bases and caps, almost certainly of twelfth-century date, and thus coëval with the Late Norman or Transitional portions of the church. In the exquisite little chapel at Kirkstead is the earliest wooden screen-work in the county (and, saving Compton, in the country), which has probably been the upper portion of a choir-screen, in the back of two pews. It is composed altogether of thirteen bays, divided equally between the seats. Each bay consists of a lancet-headed trefoil supported by octagonal pillars with moulded capitals and bases. The total height of the work is 2 feet 9 inches, and it consists of oak throughout. This screen was considered by the late Bishop of Nottingham to be coëval with the chapel itself—i.e. to have been made about the first quarter of the thirteenth century. In Rochester Cathedral is (or was) some screen-work of the same date and character. In Thurcaston Church, Leicestershire, is a screen consisting of plain panel-work in the lower part, and of a series of open arches above, trefoiled in the heads, and springing from slender cylindrical shafts, with moulded bases and caps, being almost identical (save in having cylindrical pillars) with the example from Kirkstead. In Stanton Harcourt Church, Oxfordshire, is a very similar screen, only with circular annulated pillars; this is considered to be forty or fifty years later in date—i.e. about 1260, about the same date as the screen at St. Andrew’s, Chinnor, in the same county.
Transcriber’s Note: this image is clickable for a larger version.
Rood-Screen and Base of Loft, Sleaford Church (St. Denis’).
The screens of Decorated and Perpendicular date may be taken together in general description, more especially as the essential feature of Lincolnshire screens—an ogee arch—appears in both and in nearly every instance.
Firstly, then, a beam runs transversely and horizontally across from pillar to pillar of the chancel arch, or in front thereof, sometimes supported by corbels at either end, as has been the case at Heckington and Wellingore. This may or may not be the rood-beam (i.e. the beam on which the rood stood). In some cases the rood-beam was quite separate from and independent of the screen, as at Claypole, where there are corbels for it on each side of and high up on the chancel arch; at Legbourne, where the same arrangement is made, and in the Morning Chapel, Lincoln Minster. At Blyton the rood-beam remains above the chancel arch; above the upper side of the beam the wall is recessed, probably to allow of a boarded and panelled background to the rood and the other two figures. Further support to this beam (of the screen) is afforded by a number of stout uprights from the floor (where is sometimes a horizontal wooden or a stone base) to the rood-beam, dividing the screen into bays, varying in number with the size of the screen, whereof the middle one is generally the largest, though at Frampton, Stixwould, Mumby, Middle Rasen, Lusby, and Miningsby it is of the same size as the others.