This monumental depiction of the crucifixion at St Marnock’s in Fowlis Easter, Angus, is the most complete pre-Reformation rood image to survive in Britain. The artist was informed by German and Flemish images of the late 15th century. Part of an altarpiece of the same date also survives here.
Earlier this month, Athena visited St Marnock’s Church in the hamlet of Fowlis Easter, Angus. It’s one of a multitude of buildings that the Church of Scotland has listed for closure and sale. Soon, she understands, this Category A-listed building may be available on the market for only £75,000.
The situation raises in extreme form some of the issues and complexities of what’s happening to churches in Scotland. St Marnock’s was rebuilt following the foundation of a college of priests here by the local landowner, Sir Andrew Gray, in the 1450s. The new building took the form of a large box covered by a timber barrel vault. As medieval convention demanded, it was internally divided into a public nave and clerical choir by a timber screen surmounted by a ‘rood’ or image of the crucifixion. In this case, the rood was painted on a panel that filled the curve of the vault. There was also an elevated loft, accessed by a ladder, running along the top of the screen that could be used for lighting votive candles at the feet of Christ crucified.
The iconoclasm that followed the Reformation in the 16th century witnessed the wholesale destruction of roods across the British Isles. At Fowlis Easter, however, the entire screen, loft and rood were cannibalised to create a pew for the local laird. This pew additionally enclosed the high altar and clearly gave the medieval choir fixtures a degree of protection as well. Consequently, when the church was restored in the 1880s, there came to light — in frustratingly obscure circumstances — a unique collection of 1480s church furnishings.
'There is clearly a Gordian knot of problems here, but the property market is not the tool that will cut through it properly'
These comprise the only substantially complete medieval rood image in Britain, the doors of the screen, several figures of apostles and saints that probably ornamented the loft, a massive section of the high altarpiece and a carved sacrament house, a repository for the consecrated host. Also in the late 19th century, the font from the church, carved with scenes of the Passion, was returned to the building. All the paintings, which probably date to the 1480s, were mounted on the walls of the restored church, but it’s still possible to see how the building accommodated them with projecting stones to support structural elements and windows to illuminate their imagery.
The proposed sale puts the future of this extraordinary survival into question. If the paintings are removed, they lose the context that gives them meaning. If they form part of the sale, however, they will be conveyed from public to private ownership. As an added complication, how can the building be physically altered without obscuring the coherence of what survives?
A local group, Fowlis Forward, is trying to save the church as a public amenity. Athena wishes them success, but can’t help feeling that the Church of Scotland is perpetrating cultural blackmail on us all by threatening to sell — and therefore compromise — this extraordinary survival. There is clearly a Gordian knot of problems here, but the property market is not the tool that will cut through it properly.
