Summary. Various screens have separated the choir from the nave. A metal screen, installed in 1861, is one of the most outstanding works in metal in the UK.
From early times a choir was separated by some kind of screen from the worshippers. The choir was integral to the worship and close to the priests at the east end of the church, whereas the worshippers were mere spectators. The earliest screen was a triple arch.
7th- century church at Reculver showing a triple arch separating the choir or cantor and priests from the nave. Bassa built a church in 669.
AI rendition of inside an early church with a triple arch.
Possible
layout of the second cathedral, conjectured to be by King Offa in 770s, with a
triple arch.
Possible
layout of Brixworth Church late 8th-century.
It is unknown what sort of screen
separated the choir when the third, current cathedral was built in the
13th-century. In 1492, a new pair of organs were placed in the loft over the
choir screen.[1]
It is also unknown what happened during
the iconoclasm of Reformation and what was present after the 1646 Civil War
destruction. It could have been two outside arches with gates and a middle
doorway through a large arch as drawn early in the 18th-century. The screen appears
to have steps to the organ on the south side of the central arch.
AI rendition
based on a drawing by Gale, 1720, and published by Browne Willis in 1727.
In 1789, James Wyatt removed the
stone screen between the choir and the Lady Chapel and used the stone to build
a new screen between the crossing and the choir.[2] A
new organ was placed on top of the stone wall in 1790; Wyatt designed its case.
It occupied the first choir bay, an estimated area of 9 m x 6 m (30 feet wide
and 20 feet long). Britton called it an organ screen.[3] In
the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1795, lxv, 998-9, it was described as a beautiful
screen. A glass screen over the organ and reaching to the roof was put up in
1801. The stone screen, organ and an added window stretched upwards to the roof
now totally separated the nave from the choir so that visitors to the nave could
not see or hear much from the clergy behind the monumental wall. Within the wall were two rooms, presumably vestries,
though the northern room had steps to the organ loft.
In 1856, the organ was removed and placed in the north choir aisle. In 1857, the stone screen was dismantled. In 1859, as part of the complete restoration of the choir and presbytery by George Gilbert Scott, 1811–1878,[5] drawings were prepared for an innovative open metal screen to separate the nave from the choir which would allow sight of the high altar.[6] The screen was designed by Scott, manufactured by Francis Alfred Skidmore,[7] 1817–1896, at his works in Alma Street, Hillfields, Coventry, and installed in 1861. The estimated cost was £800 with another £132 paid for gates across the adjacent aisles. Drawings were submitted for a new pulpit in 1864 and installed a year later. Skidmore almost certainly went on to make the lectern in brass.[8]
Original
drawing of a screen. It is less ornate than the final screen.
‘The chancel
screen at Lichfield is as original in its conception as in its execution; it is
absolutely unsurpassed, (Arts Journal, London, 1862)
The screen is
a highly-ornamented structure in wrought-iron, copper and brass with polychrome
in red, green, gilt and other oxide colours. The capitals are hammered copper
and there are imitations of various fruits (blackberry, red currants,
strawberries, rose hips and grapes) in ivory, onyx, and red and white cornelian.
On each side at the top of the screen are eight bronze angels playing ancient
musical instruments representing the heavens singing as Bede described when
Chad died.[9] There
is much representation of plants and it has been suggested the screen harks to
a hedge.
Scott had previously designed a
wooden screen at Ely and had it installed in 1851; it was his first open screen
in a cathedral. Making a screen in metal at Lichfield was new to the UK and others
followed at Hereford, Worcester (1873) and Salisbury. Durham rejected a metal screen
and instead installed one in marble and alabaster. The Hereford screen was
first displayed at the London International Exhibition in 1862 at which it was
said to be ‘the finest piece of modern metalwork in existence’.[10] It consisted of eight tons of iron, copper and
brass with 50,000 pieces of mosaic, enamels and stones. Others thought it added
gloom to the cathedral after its installation in 1863. In 1967, after fierce
argument for and against the merit of the screen, it was taken out of the
cathedral and first stored in Coventry and then the V & A Museum in London.
Its restoration began in 1999 and by 2001 was on display in the metalwork
section of the museum.
Drawing of the Hereford screen at the 1862 Exhibition.
From Illustrated London News, 30 August 1962. It took over 70 men and 5
months to make. Below is the screen in the cathedral.
The screen at Salisbury, erected 1869–72, was removed in 1959 and sold as scrap metal.[11]
Screen in
Salisbury Cathedral
Lichfield’s metal screen remains
the only one left in place in a cathedral. It has been little altered; there
was some restoration in the 1970s. It harks to the new gates of Jerusalem in
the Book of Revelation. Like the stalls, reredos, statues, presbytery tiled floor
and cathedra it shows off fine Midland’s craftsmanship.
[1]
J. C. Cox, ‘XVIII Benefactions of Thomas
Heywood, Dean (1457-1492) to the cathedral church of Lichfield,’ Archaeologia,
(1890). 52, 02, 617-46.
[2]
Stukeley described the screen as a “fine piece of architecture although the
figures are destroyed and every cherub defaced. It is uniform from top to
bottom and yet every capital and pedestal are different works of art.” Pennant
said it was the most elegant which can be imagined.
[3]
J. Britton, The history and antiquities of the See and
cathedral church of Lichfield. (London: 1820), 42.
[4] Ibid, J.
Britton (1820), Plates 7 and 10.
[5]
Best remembered for his design of the Midland Hotel at St Pancras and the
Albert Memorial. Scott also designed the Workhouse on Trent Valley Road, now
part of Samuel Johnson hospital. When appointed he had a staff of 27. After his
death his work at Lichfield was continued by his son, John Oldrid Scott,
1841–1913.
[6]
There are records of much discussion on the location or not of a screen, its form
and material and what it should represent. Opening up the visual aspect of the
cathedral was deemed to be paramount. The general view is George Scott
more-or-less had his ideas executed. The screen reflects the growing use of
ironwork due to its lowered cost of production and manufacture.
[7]
He was recognised as a premier metalworker of the 19th-century, yet sadly died
in poverty. His silver-gilt and enamel chalice exhibited in the Great
Exhibition, 1851, launched his career. It is now in the V & A.. !n 1867,
Coventry held its own International Exhibition, and Skidmore had a large
section for his exhibits.
[8]
D. Wallington, Scott and Skidmore. The Lichfield legacy. Unpub. article
in the Cathedral Library. 44–60.
[9]
Angels playing musical instruments is a motif for Chad around the cathedral and
particularly in St Chad’s Head Chapel. J. McClure and R. Collins, Bede; The
ecclesiastical history of the English people. (Oxford: 2008), 176. “If you
heard the sound of singing and saw a heavenly company come down, I command you
in the name of the Lord to tell no one before my death.”
[10]
Quoted from I. Brown, ‘The Hereford Screen’, Ecclesiology Today. (2014),
Issues 47 & 48, 3–44.
[11]
R. Mount, ‘Screens and vistas in Cathedral. An old controversy revived’, Country
Life, (September, 1960).
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