This is one of only two surviving medieval rood screens and rood lofts in the north of England (the other is at Flamborough, East Yorkshire). All pre-Reformation churches had a rood screen running across the top of the nave, thus separating the nave (where the congregation gathered) from the chancel (where the altar is). During the Reformation the screens were seen as a barrier preventing the people from participating fully in the rituals occurring on the altar and were all systematically destroyed.
Rood screens are a late medieval development; before the rood screen was the chancel screen, which developed as a form of protection for the Blessed Sacrament after the Fourth Lateran council (1215) declared this to be truly the Body and Blood of Christ. A medieval rood screen
consisted of three levels. The lowest was formed of solid panels, used normally for the exhibition of religious pictures. At Bignor, Cherry Hinton [both in southern England] and elsewhere, the panels were pierced by apertures; these probably allowed kneeling children to view the ritual in the chancel. The middle level was a row of open and usually traceried windows. These, too, afforded parishioners in the nave a sight of the high altar. [...] The uppermost level... supported the rood loft. (Robert Whiting, The Reformation of the English Parish Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 9.
'Rood' is simply the Old English word for a crucifix, the most important furnishing in any medieval church. This was originally hung from the chancel arch but over time became incorporated into the chancel screen, which then became known as the rood screen.
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| Close up view of the rood loft, which would originally have incorporated an full and almost life-size Crucifixion scene |
People in the Middle Ages never did anything by halves, so the crucifix would have been almost life-size and usually flanked by the figures of the Sorrowful Mother and St John. The figures at Hubberholme have long been lost, but they would have looked something like this:
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| This is the 19th-century reconstructed rood screen in All Saints North Street, York |
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| Hubberholme rood loft from the chancel side |
The Hubberholme rood loft (medieval equivalent of a choir loft) now lacks its floor boards ('elf and safety would never approve!).
The church, named St Michael and All Angels (not to be confused with the two other churches in the near vicinity unimaginatively named St Michael and All Angels too), is also famous (locally at least) for having the graveyard where JB Priestly's ashes were buried, and for housing some of the handiwork of Robert Thompson, the "Mouseman of Kilburn." He was the wood carver who made the church pews; his 'signature' was a little mouse:
Photographs of Hubberholme church by Peter and Sebastian.
Church website: http://www.achurchnearyou.com/hubberholme-st-michael-all-angels/
