Derbyshire (England) -- Antiquities; Derbyshire (England) -- History
The height of the fenestration is 54½ inches, with tracery in
the heads to the depth of 25½ inches. The lower part of the screen
is 46 inches high, and it is pierced, parclose fashion, by a band of
pierced tracery, forming long panels 9½ inches high. For the rest, this
parclose is similar in design to the rood-screen, only that the main
shafts of the parclose are more handsomely treated with buttresses and
tall, graceful gables, terminating in crocketed pinnacles. The cavetto
of the lintel contains square Gothic pateras. Neither screen shows any
trace of colour. No rood-entrance nor stair remains, but from the plan
of the building it is evident that the former rood-loft could not have
exceeded in length the width of the nave.
[Illustration: Elvaston Church: Rood-Screen (restored).]
Fenny Bentley.—There is no structural division between nave and
chancel, and the rood-screen has been repeatedly shifted backwards
and forwards, but it is now standing approximately in its original
position. Injured, but surviving the many dangers and vicissitudes
through which it had to pass, it remained without repair until about
1848–50, when it underwent complete “restoration” (the vaulting being
practically all renewed), and that very creditably done for the time.
The screen is 18 ft 2 in. long by 9 ft. 4½ in. high. It consists of
eight bays (centring 2 ft. 3¼ in.), whereof the two midmost go to
make the doorway, which is 6 ft. 0¼ in. high to the crown of its
four-centred arch, with a clear opening of 4 ft. 1½ in., protected by
gates. The fenestration openings are four-centred, and measure 5 feet
high from crown to cill, with tracery in the heads to the depth of 1
ft. 8¾ in., nine inches below the level of the vault-springing. The
door-lintel has the left-hand spandril carved with a fox and a goose in
his mouth; the right-hand spandril with a Gothic flower, not a rose.
The lower part of the screen is 3 ft. high, the rail being ornamented
with geometrical tracery. The ridiculous travesty of metal stanchions
and saddle-bars, carried out in wood, ought to be got rid of as soon
as possible. They may not deceive at the present day, but the danger
is that the longer they are allowed to remain, the more they will tone
down until they have acquired that specious air of antiquity which may
enable them to pass for genuine, until some expert will detect the
fraud, and perhaps be provoked on their account to call in question
the authenticity of the whole screen into which they have become thus
unwarrantably intruders. There is no vaulting at the top of the screen
on the eastern side. The loft floor measures 57 inches from front
to back, exclusive of the modern cresting on the front. There is no
sign of any entrance to the rood-loft, but the stair was probably on
the north side, in the wall which has now been rebuilt and converted
into an arcade. The rood-screen exhibits a fully-matured phase of
Perpendicular. It has been variously dated from 1460 to 1500. One
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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