The Historical Growth of the English Parish ChurchThompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
History
The Historical Growth of the English Parish Church
Thompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
Church architecture -- England
There would be a holy water stoup in the wall, on the right hand as one
entered the church: often the stoup is found in the porch. In some of
the Norfolk churches--Sall, Cawston, Aylsham, and Worstead are the best
instances--the lower part of the tower is screened off from the nave,
the screen supporting a floor which forms a ringers' gallery. In the
ringers' gallery at Sall there is a kind of crane, by which the cover
of the font, which stands close to the west end, is lifted. In a few
churches, as at Weston-in-Gordano in Somerset, there are remains of a
small gallery above the main doorway of the church. This is sometimes
explained as a gallery used on Palm Sunday by the semi-chorus who
joined in chanting the processional hymn. Such a gallery might be used
by singers or minstrels on special occasions.
§ 53. The transepts, where they occur, were, as has already been said,
used as chapels, or divided off into more than one chapel. Little need
be said of the chapels on either side of the chancel, as the general
arrangement of their altars and furniture was not very different from
that of the chancel itself. The quire and chancel were divided from the
nave by the rood screen. This important piece of furniture, usually of
wood, but sometimes of stone, crossed the chancel arch from side to
side; and was often continued, in churches where the chancel arch was
omitted, across the west end of the chancel aisles. Where there was
a chancel arch, the chancel chapels had their own screens. The rood
screen was elaborately carved, and its lower panels were painted with
figures of angels, saints, prophets, apostles, and other designs. The
uprights dividing the panels were continued upwards on either side
of open panels, sometimes treated as tall arched openings, at other
times imitating the form of mullioned windows, and were framed into a
plinth at the bottom, and a horizontal beam at the top. The central
division of the screen was closed by folding doors: on either side
of this entrance was sometimes, against the west side of the screen,
an altar. At Ranworth in Norfolk the screen altars are enclosed by
panels returned from the face of the screen: there are distinct
traces of this arrangement at Weston-in-Gordano and other places;
and, at Lapford and Swymbridge in Devon, there are large rectangular
openings in the traceried panels of the upper part of the screens,
across which painted cloths seem to have been stretched at the back of
the side altars. Above the screen, with its floor-beams laid across
the top, and attached to either face by a series of trusses which
formed a deep coved and ribbed cornice to the screen, was the loft,
gallery, or, as it was often called, the 'solar.' Sometimes, as at
Montgomery and Llanwnog, the screen was double, the floor of the loft
forming a roof to the space between. This upper story had a projecting
parapet on either side, the front of which was divided into panels
and painted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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