Derbyshire (England) -- Antiquities; Derbyshire (England) -- History
Melbourne.—At the general restoration of the church in 1859–60, the
rood-screen was so unsparingly treated as to make it difficult to tell
what its original design could have been. It is 13 ft. 9 in. long,
and stands at the entrance of the chancel in the eastern crossing.
A drawing, published in the Anastatic Drawing Society’s volume for
1862, represents the church in the process of “restoration.” The
screen, as there depicted, though it cannot have been even then in
its original condition (having lost its vaulting, gates, and solid
part at the bottom), differs considerably from the screen in its
present state. It dated from the Perpendicular period, and consisted
(as in fact it does still) of three bays, the middle one, for the
entrance, being the largest. But the three main arches, which once
constituted its most prominent feature, have since been replaced by
obtuse chevrons, the ungainly massiveness of which is barely relieved
by the ill-designed tracery underneath, or by a recent attempt to
amend the bungling “restoration” of thirty years previously. It was in
1890, or thereabouts, that this unavailing re-restoration took place.
The fact is that nothing can be done with Sir Gilbert Scott’s clumsy
framework. To overlay it with applied ornament is only to emphasise
its defects. There is but one satisfactory remedy, and that is to
remove it altogether, and to replace it by something else fashioned on
the beautiful flowing lines of the old Gothic design. The upper part
contains eight pierced ornaments, 21½ inches in height from the crown
of the two-centred arch to the base of the tracery, and 15 inches in
width. Beyond these there is practically nothing of the original work
left in the whole screen, which not only gives a very poor idea of what
the majestic structure of the fifteenth century must have been, but
also is in every way unworthy of the grandeur of its surroundings.
Mickleover.—Rev. R. R. Rawlins, in 1825, described the entrance from
the nave as being “through a wooden arch,” near to which were the
remains of a piscina. Whether this wooden arch represents the ancient
rood-screen or not, it is impossible to tell. At any rate, the piscina
shows that an altar must anciently have stood against the front of the
screen.
Monyash.—Previously to the “restoration” of 1886–8, in the east wall of
the north transept, at a height of about twelve feet from the ground,
there projected a wide stone, which had served as the step of the
doorway that led on to the top of the rood-loft. The outline of the
doorway itself could be traced until the unhappy changes at the above
date caused it to disappear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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