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. [Illustration: 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.