They survived the iconoclasm of Henry VIII and the English civil war,
but beautiful examples of early religious art in churches are now under
threat from neglect and even heating, experts warned.
The
painted rood screens -- the stone or wooden structures that divide the
public part of a church from the priest's area -- depict saints,
prophets and kings and some are viewed as masterpieces of medieval art.
Many
were destroyed in religious violence in the 16th and 17th centuries
because they were associated with the pope and the Catholic Church after
the Reformation.
But of the several thousand that survived in
parish churches in Britain many are now threatened by insect attacks,
damaged by bat faeces or warped by fluctuations in temperature and
humidity caused by central heating.
"This is a cause for national
concern," said Catherine Cullis, churches officer from the Society for
the Protection of Ancient Buildings, which has raised the issue in its
membership magazine, "Cornerstone".
"Wonderful painted rood
screens are among the surviving glories of early English art, but their
future has been compromised as much by our complicated religious history
as by lack of
protection.
"It seems that 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."
In Old English, "rood" means cross or crucifix.
Cullis
acknowledged, however, that with church attendance and funding
dwindling, most congregations were preoccupied with keeping their
buildings watertight.
Many also did not understand that "even
something such as turning up the central heating can cause a problem", a
spokeswoman told AFP.
A survey by the National Churches Trust in
April found eight percent of 47,000 churches, chapels and meeting houses
in Britain were in poor or very poor condition.