Rood Screen - St Agnes - Cawston, Norfolk
Posted by: SMacB
N 52° 46.202 E 001° 09.728
31U E 376011 N 5848272
Rood screen and painted Dado in St Agnes' church, Cawston. Said to be one of Norfolk's finest.
Waymark Code: WM12M6Z
Location: Eastern England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 06/13/2020
Views: 2
Rood screen and painted Dado in St Agnes' church, Cawston. It dates fron the 15th century, and is said to be one of Norfolk's finest.
The screen is well-documented as the work of three artists, and depicts, from the left:
St Agnes and her lamb,
St Helena and her cross,
St Thomas,
St John the Evangelist,
St James,
St Andrew,
St Paul
St Peter.
On the gates are St Gregory (Vandalised during the reformation, probably because of his papal tiara), St Jerome, St Ambrose and St Augustine.
On the south side, the Saints are:
St James the Less,
St Bartholomew,
St Philip,
St Jude,
St Simon,
St Matthew famously in his glasses,
St Matthias, who appears to be carrying a filofax,
and the uncanonised Sir John Schorn conjuring the devil into a boot - The image is heavily vandalised, probably during the reformation because of superstitious practices associated with him.
"The screen is notable as an example of carving and painting, which retains a lot of its upper tracery and also has twenty figure panels along the dado. Cawston’s screen is especially important because will bequests at various dates attest to its construction and decoration over an extended period which tells us a lot about how rood screens came to be made and decorated.
Cawston is one of the few Norfolk and Suffolk screens to retain glass decoration on the front of the mullions. It is also highly unusual in that the last six figures on the south side are cut-outs, painted on parchment rather than on the wood."
SOURCE - (
visit link) , which has further details on each of the Saints on the screen.