§ 54. The use of the loft was, it has often been said, for the deacon to sing the gospel from at high mass on great festivals. This was certainly the case with the stone _pulpita_ above the quire screens of collegiate and monastic churches. But, in most parish churches the stair was so narrow and inconvenient that certainly the vestments and probably the temper of the deacon who attempted to climb it would be easily spoiled. In many lofts, it is true, there was an altar. The piscina of one remains in a few churches, as at Little Hereford: there was a chantry founded in 1349 at one in Grantham church, where the screen was a large one of stone. But the habitual use of the loft was as an organ gallery; and the fine screen at Newark-on-Trent still has at its east side the rectangular projection which was occupied by a 'pair of organs.' The rood itself, the great cross bearing the figure of our Lord with statues of St Mary and St John upon either side, stood upon a beam which crossed the chancel arch above the loft. The beam was, of course, painted, and, in addition to the statues which it carried, bore sockets for candles, which were lighted on festival occasions. The corbels which supported rood beams are sometimes seen: beams themselves, however, do not often remain. There is a finely painted example of one at Tunstead in Norfolk; and another remains at Cullompton in Devon. Here and there, where the beam was fixed in the wall, and had to be sawn away, the end may still be seen. Some screens had no loft: in these cases the rood frequently stood upon the top of the screen. In some cases, as at Llanelieu in Breconshire and Wenhaston in Suffolk, the rood and its attendant figures were fixed upon a painted board which formed a back to the loft, and filled the upper part of the chancel arch. In other places, as at Hickleton, near Doncaster, and Llanbedr-ystrad-yw, they were fixed against the wall above the chancel arch. This would be the case where, as at Hickleton, the arch was low and narrow, and there was no room for a separate beam beneath it. No piece of church furniture is more interesting than the rood screen and its accompaniments: the variety of local design and of its arrangements, and the great beauty of the finished work, make it, of all special topics of ecclesiology, perhaps the most attractive.