Derbyshire (England) -- Antiquities; Derbyshire (England) -- History
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.
At Monks’ Dale, in Tideswell parish, was formerly a grange, with a
chapel attached, supposed to have belonged to Lenton Priory. The
walls of the chapel are overthrown down to the foundations. “All that
remains of it above ground are the beautifully carved stones of the
low ... stone screen that divided the chancel from the nave. They are
of fourteenth century work”—of the date 1360, _circa_, according to
the late Rev. Prebendary Andrew—“and exactly correspond to those ...
in the chancel of Chelmorton.” This account appeared in 1877. By 1882
the aforesaid stonework had been removed to the vicarage garden at
Tideswell.
Embedded in a wall in Allestree parish, near the site of the old manor
house, on the road to Mackworth, is, or recently was, to be seen
another fragment of worked stone, with sculptured quatrefoils, and
altogether so closely resembling the before-named examples as to lead
to the conclusion that it must have formed part of an ancient screen in
Allestree or some neighbouring church.
[Illustration: Chelmorton Church:
Southern Half of Stone Rood-Screen.]
[Illustration: Darley Dale Church:
Detail of Stone Parclose.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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