Neglect and central heating are destroying some of Britain’s finest early works of religious art, according to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.
Rood screens, which separate the nave and the chancel in parish churches, are often faded, covered with grime or hard to access and overlooked. Many of the medieval screens were decorated with portraits of saints and even depictions of the Apocalypse, but were destroyed during the Reformation because religious art was considered “popish”. Now surviving examples are also under threat, paying the price for the comfort of churchgoers.
Experts say that central heating has caused as much damage to the screens as centuries of neglect. Catherine Cullis, churches officer of the SPAB, whose magazine Cornerstone has highlighted the problem, said: “This is a cause for national concern. Many rood screens survived the violent iconoclasm of the Reformation, only to fall victim to benign neglect in the 21st century. Elsewhere they would surely be valued as medieval masterpieces and treated accordingly.”
Several thousand survive across the country with the largest numbers in East Anglia and the South West.
Spike Bucklow, a research scientist at the University of Cambridge, has been given a grant to study rood screens in East Anglia. He says that about five hundred survive, fewer than half of those that originally existed.
“Churches are not used as regularly as they once were so there are fewer people and less money, and many churches now have central heating,” he said. “The changes in temperatures cause the wood to expand and contract and the paint to crack.”
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