Notre Dame de Rouen. The façade of the Gothic Church in France. Photographer: Hippo1947. Licence: SHUTTERSTOCK.

08 November, 2025

Hereford Cathedral (Cathedral Of Saint Mary The Virgin And Saint Ethelbert The King). (Part Eight).



The Hereford Cathedral Choir Screen after conservation 
and restoration at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The following two paragraphs are from

The Hereford Screen was a star exhibit at the 
1862 International Exhibition in London, and 
was praised as “the grandest and most triumphant achievement of modern architectural art”, before its installation in Hereford Cathedral.

In 1967, this masterpiece of Victorian ironwork 
fell victim to fashionable prejudice and, despite a 
national outcry, was dismantled. The once rusty, disintegrated pieces have now been carefully conserved by 
the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, returning this magnificent Screen to its former splendour.

The Hereford Cathedral Web-Site can be found



Hereford Cathedral Choir Screen in place in Hereford Cathedral 1890-1900. [Editor: It is beyond belief that anybody in authority got rid of this masterpiece in the 1960s, when it was removed, dismantled, and left to rot. Thank God that the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, eventually possessed it and restored it to its former magnificence (see, above).]
Description: Forms part of: Views of the British Isles, in the Photochrom print collection. Print No. “10810”. Title from the Detroit Publishing Co., Catalogue J-foreign section, Detroit, Mich. Detroit Publishing Company, 1905. More information about the Photochrom Print Collection is available at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.pgz
Photo Credit: This image is available from The United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID ppmsc.08439.
Source: Library of Congress 
(Wikimedia Commons)


Text from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia,
unless stated otherwise.


The Choir Stalls support forty 14th-Century Misericords. These Misericords show a mixture of mythological beasts, grotesques, and everyday events, there appears to be no pattern to the content.

In addition to the Misericords in the Choir, there are five others contained in a row of “Judges’ Seats”. It is unclear if these were used as Misericords, or if they are just ornamentation.

In the North-East Transept, of which the Vaulting is supported by a Central Octagonal Pier, a large number of monumental fragments are preserved, forming a rich and varied collection.


Hereford Cathedral.
Photo: 19 August 2013.
(Wikimedia Commons)


There is also a beautiful Altar-Tomb of Alabaster and Polished Marbles erected as a public memorial to a former Dean, Richard Dawes, who died in 1867. The effigy, by Mr. Noble, is a good likeness of the Dean, who was an ardent supporter of the education movement about the middle of the 19th-Century.

The South-East Transept contains memorials of several Bishops of Hereford. The remains of Gilbert Ironside (☩ 1701), together with his Black Marble tombstone, were removed to this place in 1867, when the Church of Saint Mary Somerset, in Upper Thames Street, London, was taken down.

Here, also, may be seen a curious effigy of Saint John the Baptist, and a fine Marble bust, believed to be the work of Roubiliac. The handsome canopied Perpendicular tomb of Richard Mayew (☩ 1516), with effigy fully vested, is on the South Side of the Altar. In the South-East Transept, again, is a doorway that opens into the Vicars’ Cloister, an interesting piece of Perpendicular Work which leads to the College of the Vicars Choral.



Hereford Cathedral. 13th-Century Early-English 
Arcaded Triforium and Clerestory.
Photo: 29 May 2012.
Author: Hugh Llewelyn
(Wikimedia Commons)


Across from the Retro-Choir, or Ambulatory, is the spacious Early-English Lady Chapel, which is built over the Crypt and approached by an ascent of five steps.

Of the five Lancet Windows at the East End, each with a Quatrefoil opening in the wall above it, Fergusson remarked that “nowhere on the Continent is such a combination to be found”; and he brackets them with the Five Sisters at York Cathedral and the East End of Ely Cathedral.

They are filled with glass by Cottingham as a memorial of Dean Merewether, who is buried in the Crypt, below, and is further commemorated here by a Black Marble slab, with a Brass by Hardman, recording his unwearied interest in the restoration of the Cathedral.


Hereford Cathedral’s Nave Ceiling.
Photo: 3 January 2008.
Source: Own work.
Author: Mattana
(Wikimedia Commons)


In the Lady Chapel, are Church Monuments of Joanna de Kilpec and Humphrey de Bohun. Joanna was a 14th-Century benefactress of the Cathedral, who gave to the Dean and Chapter an acre (4,000 m2) of land in Lugwardine, and the advowson of the Church, with several Chapels pertaining to it.

On the South Side of the Lady Chapel, separated from it by a Screen of curious design, is the Chantry, erected at the end of the 15th-Century by Edmund Audley, who, being translated to Salisbury, built another there, where he is buried. His Chantry, here, pentagonal in shape, is in two storeys, with two windows in the lower storey and five windows in the higher storey.

PART NINE FOLLOWS.

4 comments:

  1. Indeed, Zephyrinus: "It is beyond belief that anybody in authority got rid of this masterpiece in the 1960s, when it was removed, dismantled, and left to rot. But there is a parable herein: Things the proud '60's Iconoclasts thought were destroyed, have been "raised to life." And those who sought to destroy the rood screen are now gone and forgotten, rest in peace.

    Bring back the rood screens---in all the Catholic churches! No vulgar "staring" at the Sacred Mysteries. The superficial and the supercilious will get bored and go away. --Comment by Dante P.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A most pithy and “spot-on” observation and Comment from our Liturgical Architectural Correspodent, Dante P, with which we concur and for which we are most grateful.

      “Bring Back Our Rood Screens”, indeed !!! (All Planning Departments of Local Councils will now be groaning !!!)

      Delete
    2. The observer came across this excerpt from Dom Cuthbert Butler’s, “Lives of the Saints,” for Nov. 9th, “Dedication of S. John Lateran,” eloquently arguing for the sacredness of a sanctuary, and, yes, therefore for a rood screen to shield the Holy of Holies from the vacuous stares of the foolish, the profane and the gawker:

      “If Christians fill the taverns and worldly assemblies with their impieties, let them at least spare and respect God’s holy place, which he has commanded to be kept undefiled for his own sake, and where Christ is daily offered, and presents his blood to his Father in propitiation for our sins. If even infidels polluted these sacred places, we should shudder with horror: but is it possible that Christians themselves should be guilty of such sacrileges, by which they expose our most holy mysteries to the blasphemies of these infidels? How astonishing is the respect which the Mahometans and the most savage idolaters have for their mosques and pagodas! Is it only those who possess the truth, and know the divine mysteries, that lose all sense of awe and respect for what is most sacred in religion? Christ, who received meekly the greatest sinners, and bore all injuries in silence, twice exerted his zeal and indignation in expelling the buyers and sellers out of the temple, once, soon after he had entered upon his public ministry, and once before he closed it. And let Christians, agreeably to the holy name they bear, exert their zeal to defend the churches from profanations; if they have not authority to prevent them, let them at least weep over such abuses, which tend to extirpate all sense of religion. A ray of the divine presence ought to pierce our souls when we approach the sanctuary, and we ought with trembling to say to ourselves: “How terrible is this place! this is no other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven.” (Gen. 28:17, Introit for Nov. 9th, Dedication of S. John Lateran).

      Do we not enter the awful gates as we should have done the miraculous cloud? Do we not seem to hear with Moses that voice from the bush: Approach not hither; put off the shoes from thy feet, for the ground on which thou standest is holy. 53 Do we not put away all earthly thoughts and affections? Do we not veil our faces by the awe with which we are penetrated, and the strict guard we place upon our senses when we appear before him in his holy place, before whose face the heavens and the earth withdraw themselves, and their place is not found. The seraphim tremble in his presence, and veil their faces with their wings…”. -Comment by Dante P

      “Bring back the rood screens!”

      Delete
    3. A most strident and articulate Comment from our Liturgical Architectural Correspondent, Dante P, for which we are eternally grateful.

      Dom Cuthbert Butler's “Lives Of The Saints” Article that Dante P mentions is assiduous in arguing for the Sacredness of the Sanctuary to be maintained.

      Zephyrinus's reaction to the implications of that Article was to scream out loud: “Wot, no guitars ???”

      One wonders what the reactions would be if the Post-Vatican II desecrators of Churches were to be interviewed now (if possible) and asked: “What do you think of the abominations you have engineered in our Sanctuaries and Churches ? Are you still proud of them ? Do you regret them ?”

      Their interview with Saint Peter at The Pearly Gates will be most interesting.

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...