Page 39 - Historic Churches 2013

BCD Special Report on Historic Churches 20th annual edition 39 CATHEDRALC O M M U N I C A T I O N S
to house subsidiary altars (typically dedicated
to the Holy Cross). Muniment chests, used to
store important documents such as charters
and title deeds, were sometimes secured
in rood lofts. In what can be understood
as later appropriations of an existing and
convenient elevated space, organs were also
occasionally located in rood lofts, as were
pews for prominent or wealthy parishioners.
Today just 24 substantially complete
medieval rood lofts survive in Britain (13 of
them in Wales), the majority dating from
c1500. Physical evidence for rood lofts
of an earlier date is sparse. However, the
remains at Llanelieu in Breconshire belong
to the 14th century, and those at Pixley in
Herefordshire may even predate these.
One other fitting associated with the
rood screen and rood loft should be described
here: the screen-tympanum. This typically
comprised a boarded or plastered partition
which extended up from the easternmost
parapet of the rood loft, to fill in either the
chancel archway above loft height in a divided
church; or the space between the top of the loft
and the nave ceiling in an undivided church. As
well as more fully compartmentalising the nave
and chancel, this also gave a solid background
– as opposed to the glare of the east window
– against which the rood-figures might be
viewed. The backdrop formed by the tympanum
was often painted with a depiction of the Last
Judgement and Resurrection, together referred
to as ‘the Doom’ (one of the finest surviving
examples is at Wenhaston in Suffolk).
LLANANNO
The current church of St Anno was built in
1877 by the Liverpool architect David Walker,
essentially as a like-for-like replacement for a
dilapidated pre-existing medieval church on
the site. Walker’s own plans and elevations
provide a snapshot of this earlier structure. They
depict an archetypal small rural Welsh church
with nave and chancel in one and no side aisles
(similar to Rhulen St David in Radnorshire
and possibly of a similar date: c1300).
The undisputed wonder of the rebuild was
the decision to recover the medieval screenwork
from the old church and re-erect it in the new
church. In Llananno’s case, the retention of
the screenwork during a straight restoration
of the existing church would have been cause
enough for celebration. Its retention during the
construction of an entirely new church, affording
the perfect opportunity to do away with the
fittings altogether, is close to miraculous. During
the 19th century, other Radnorshire screens
were not so fortunate. Writing in 1949, Fred
Crossley and Maurice Ridgway noted that in
Radnorshire ‘of 30 or more screens existing at
the commencement of the 19th century, less
than half remain even in fragmentary form.’
Much of the credit for the saving of
Llananno’s screenwork must be taken by Walker.
His appreciation for medieval screenwork
is conveyed in a series of illustrated articles
published between 1870 and 1874. His concern
for Llananno’s screenwork is made explicit
in the final paragraph of the last of these
articles (published just three years before
the architect began work at Llananno):
It is to be deplored that this ancient church – an
edifice possessing such interesting relics of the art
wood-work of the period – should be permitted
to fall into irretrievable ruin, and that its present
sad state of neglect and decay should render
imminent the destruction of the fine example
of ecclesiastical woodwork it contains.
It wasn’t only the old church that was in
poor condition: the rood screen and rood loft
too had suffered – as evidenced by Walker’s
own drawing of the fittings as they appeared in
the old church. This shows the screen missing
a couple of tracery heads at either end and
some of the carved trail from its head-beam,
the loft coving missing several carved panels
at the right-hand end, and the niche-work of
the loft parapet as damaged and incomplete.
Despite Walker’s initial desire to leave
the screenwork in situ during the rebuild
(‘most carefully stayed and shored and
enclosed with overlap jointed slabs to
secure it from the actions of the weather
during the progress of the rebuilding of the
church’) – the evidence strongly points to
the screen and loft having been dismantled
and set aside while the new church was
David Walker’s own drawing of the rood screen and rood loft at Llananno as it stood in the old church, prior to
its reconstruction in 1877
Recent drawings by MAV Gill of the rood screen and rood loft at Llananno (including soffit panels below), showing in red the parts that are definitely post-medieval