I’m not sure where the time is going at the moment, or maybe I’m just getting older, and it takes me twice as long to do anything now….never mind I will catch up one day 🙂 I am trying to finish this beautiful church, and there is only one post left to do after this one. The Church of St Edmund, King & Martyr, in Southwold, Suffolk has some wonderful remains of a medieval Rood Screen that goes right across the church. Unfortunately the whole of the top of the screen was destroyed and all that is left to remind us how magnificent this piece of artwork was, are the panels at the base, which have been literally defaced. The figures have their faces somewhat damaged and this was done again during the commonwealth period by Dowsing’s men to show that they did not approve of representations of the figures of human beings. It was distracting, they thought, from the main purpose of worship in church. But fortunately they only seem to have gone through the motions and you can still make out the figures quite clearly in the centre at least, representing the 12 apostles. They were lightly re-touched in the Victorian times to try and save them from total deterioration. On the other two sides of the screen, the north is of a representations of the angelic host and on the south side, rather cruder and simpler panels representing the prophets of the old testament.
Echoes of the Past 
Shame that someone even thought to ruin these paintings,glad they weren’t totally ruined! Beautiful woodwork
Yes, it could have been much worse.
Well! Now I know what a rood screen is. You certainly are teaching me a lot of church interior architecture!