Ranworth rood screen

Ranworth rood screen
The Ranworth rood screen in 2023 The panel painting of the Archangel Michael Detail of the painting of St Lawrence The painting of the Virgin Mary
Material	oak
Created	c. 1479–1480
Present location	Church of St Helen, Ranworth, Norfolk, UK

The Ranworth rood screen at Church of St Helen, Ranworth, Norfolk, is a wooden medieval rood screen that divides the chancel and nave, and was originally designed to act to separate the laity from the clergy. It is described by English Heritage as "one of England's finest painted screens".^[1]

The exact date of the creation of the screen is undocumented—a date of c. 1479–1480 has been proposed by modern experts. The screen has an elaborate and coherent design, depicting 26 figures, including 12 named Apostles in the central part of the screen. The southern end, which was designed as a Lady Chapel, has panel paintings of the Virgin Mary and three other female saints.They all have a connection with childbirth and babies, which may have had a special significance for the women of the parish; it has been suggested that during the Middle Ages, women who had recently given birth came to the altar to be blessed, signifying thanks for their survival and their return from their period of lying-in.

Ranworth's rood screen survived the iconoclasm of the English Reformation. It is relatively well-preserved, but the loft parapet above the screen has not survived. Drawings of it were made in 1839 by Harriet Gunn, and it was described in detail in the 1870s. The panels at Ranworth were restored by Pauline Plummer during the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1937, the art historian Audrey Baker identified a group of East Anglian parish churches with medieval panels related to those at Ranworth; since then, screens and panel paintings from other churches have been suggested, all dating from 1470 – c. 1500. The Ranworth group is also related by the way the framed were jointed during construction, and the depiction of tiles and the use of similar and identical stencils in the panel paintings. There is evidence that the rood screens were made in the same workshop before being painted by unnamed artists in situ.