Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/278

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first part of the nineteenth century, have swept away much that was historically of the utmost interest, and which the better informed and more responsible guardians of the churches to-day would have preserved and treasured. This mediæval woodwork is found most frequently in the more remote parts of the country. The best rood loft I have ever seen is in a little church in Wales, near Towyn, and some of the finest rood screens with canopies are in the churches of Devon; of these, Mr. Hubert Congreve, in his paper contributed to the Worcester Archæological Society, notes that at Stoke-in-Teignhead there is one of the fourteenth century, carved in the reign of Richard II. From this the loft has been removed, and it was generally the case that when this was taken away as idolatrous, the screen itself was not objected to.

Many of these screens in the Devon churches have an extremely rich and deep cornice, and they often extend right across the nave and both the aisles. Perhaps the finest of these is in the famous parson Jack Russell's church at Swymbridge. This is of the fifteenth century. From the same source we learn that Bovey Tracey has a similar screen, but it has had to be greatly restored since the Commonwealth destruction, and that Atherington has a lovely screen in the north aisle, with fan-shaped coving springing from figures of angels holding shields. The cornice is delicately carved, and there is some fine canopy work over the parapet, with niches which once held figures of the saints. This screen was originally in the chapel at Umberleigh Manor, and is perhaps the only screen in the county which has never been painted. When I visited lately the quaint little town of Totnes I saw what is most uncommon—a stone screen. This dates from 1479, and richly and beautifully carved, much after the pattern of the screen in the Lady Chapel at Exeter Cathedral.

All this fine mediæval work suffered terribly fron the ultra-Protestant mania for iconoclasm which exhibited itself in the reign of Edward VI., in 1547, and again under Elizabeth in 1561. Finally, under the Parliament both in 1643 and 1644, was issued "An ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament for the utter demolishing, removing and taking away of all Monuments of superstition and idolatry."

This Act provided specifically for the taking away of all altar rails and the levelling of the "Chancel-ground" and the