The Penn Doom

The painting of the Doom, or Last Judgement, which hangs high above the chancel arch may not seem impressive at first sight, but it is a very rare survival from the Middle Ages. There are only five of its type in the country.

It has hung in our Church for 600 years and is all that is left to remind us of the colourful images that so impressed the largely illiterate worshippers in the Catholic Church that served our predecessors. All such evidence of popery was forbidden after the Anglican Church was established and the painting, which was then fitted under the chancel arch, was whitewashed over in about 1550. A further layer of the lath and plaster was added, probably when the chancel arch was rebuilt in 1733.

1938: The boards of the Penn Doom roughly
reassembled and freed of lath and plaster and
some whitewash, immediately after discovery,
but before cleaning.

It was only rediscovered in 1938, quite by chance and in its present position, when workmen were repairing the roof. They broke up what they thought was old lath and plaster and piled it in the churchyard to be carted away. Some was taken to the local rubbish tip. One of the workmen was about to take some home for firewood when he noticed a face painted on its surface. He called the Vicar who called Dr. Clive Rouse, a very considerable expert in such matters, who at once realised its importance and after two days combing through the rubbish tip, recovered and assembled as many of the pieces as he could find.
(An extended article on the Penn Doom, Records of Buckinghamshire, Vol 44, 2004)

A painting of the Doom made by Dr. Clive Rouse. Pinxit 1939.

The Penn-Pennsylvania Fellowship have recently paid for a survey by Ruth Bubb, an expert conservator, who has recommended that it should be taken down to be repaired, cleaned and treated for woodworm. This would also allow a close technical examination by experts using X-rays, infra red reflectography and pigment analysis. One particular area of interest is that an earlier painting, more delicate in tone and line, underlies the simpler, bolder design, which we can see.

The PCC have decided to accept Ruth Bubb’s advice, and the Diocesan Advisory Committee has given their agreement. Application will be made to various grant-making bodies.

Extended Penn Doom article, Records of Bucks, 2004

© Miles Green, February 2000.
Photograph courtesy Eddie Morton, ARPS

The corbel in the corner of the south wall of the nave, next to the organ, has the shield of the Curzon Howe family. It was a ‘guess’ during the 1952 restoration, painted over an unidentifiable earlier shield, but cannot have been an original device since the Curzon Howe alliance came into being only 200 years ago.

On the north wall, in the other corner by the organ, is the Mohun shield. This was identifiable in 1952. Sir John de Mohun (1320-75) was one of the Black Prince’s leading followers and one of the original Knights of Garter – his name and arms are still in St. George’s Chapel Windsor.

His connection with Penn was through his mother who was a Segrave. He married a neice of the Bishop of Lincoln who survived him by thirty years. We know she built and endows a chantry chapel in Canterbury and the unexpected Mohun shield in Penn may record a similar offering to Mother Church. The suggested date of c.1400 for our timber roof fits well.

Her connection with the Bishop of Lincoln may also explain the figure of a Bishop on the corbel near the north door. Alternatively the Bishop represented could be St. Hugh (1186-1200), the Bishop who began the rebuilding of Lincoln Cathedral.

© Miles Green, January 2000.

Most late medieval churches had a wooden screen dividing the people’s nave from the holy area of the chancel. The lower part, to about waist height, was made of solid wooden panels, usually painted with the patron saint and other popular saints, with a central door.

Elaborately carved posts supported a loft or gallery which in turn supported the great central crucifix known as the Rood, flanked by Mary and John. A painting of Judgement Day or Doomsday was set in the tympanum of the chancel arch above or behind the Rood group.

The Rood group and screen thus summarised the essentials of medieval Christian belief and was still a ritual prop which served as a focus of worship, particularly on Palm Sunday when the Clerk often stood in the Rood-loft at the foot of the Cross to sing the service.

The Doom survives in Penn and what appears to be the opening to the Rood-loft staircase was found set in the south wall, during restoration work in 1952. In the centre of the wooden beam above the chancel arch there is still the socket which held the Rood in place with a hook on each side to support the figures of Mary and John.

Rood loft opening …

One or more candles were kept burning all the time on the Rood loft and parishioners provided for them in their wills. Thus in 1513, William Grove left a sheep, and in 1544, Thomas Bovingdon bequethed 4d to the Rood-light of Penn. The burning of any lights except for two candles on the altar was strictly forbidden by an injunction of 1547 after Henry VIII’s death released the full vigour of reforming Protestant zeal. It is therefore very surprising to find that, as late as January 1549, Roger Playter could still bequeth 2d to the Rood-light at Penn and 2d to the priest ‘to say masse in the chapell for my soule at a time convenient‘ .

© Miles Green, August 2000.

If we were transported back in time to stand outside the church when it was first built, probably 900 years ago, we would not recognise it. There was no tower, both the nave and chancel were smaller and there was no south aisle, side chapel or vestry. In the following two centuries the church gradually expanded as the population increased and as the services became more elaborate. By the start of the 15th C we would at least have known where we were.

Inside it looked very different. There were no seats in the candle-lit nave which was strewn with straw and rushes and must have been freezing cold in winter. The congregation took little active part in the service, most of which was in Latin. There was no hymn singing.

Nonetheless, it was a place of awe and mystery to our medieval predecessors. It was the only stone-built building in the parish and by far the most impressive. The walls were painted with biblical scenes in bright colours which we know are stil there under the whitewash because patches of colour were revealed in practically every part of the church when the walls were steam cleaned in 1952. Unfortunately it was too expensive to expose anything beyond the three 13th C consecration crosses and two small texts and painting near the present pulpit.

It had a very catholic appearance with painted statues and woodwork, stained glass and large brass candelabra. The whole nave was dominated by the great rood screen and loft surmounted by the figures of the crucified Christ, Mary and St. John hanging in front of the painting of the Doom which fitted neatly into the pointed arch of the chancel.

It was not until the 15th C that the growing popularity of sermons and readings demanded a pulpit, a lectern and seating for the congregation.

© Miles Green, December 2000.

Church towers and bells were introduced in the Saxon period and were used not only to call the congregation to church, but for many other purposes as well; for warnings of attack or invasion, to call men to work, as a curfew, to celebrate anniversaries such as the monarch’s birthday, to rejoice at victories, to announce a death.

The earliest bells would have been hung simply, with the open end downwards. Real ringing, as we know it today, depends on the swinging of a bell starting from upside down above the frame so it performs a whole revolution at each blow This more complicated method was probably introduced by the 15th C and quite possibly earlier.

Penn’s church tower was built in about 1325, (not 1407 which was only a date found scratched on a tile somewhere in the tower). We know, from an inventory taken in 1552, by Edward VI’s Protestant commissioners, that the late medieval, Catholic, Penn church had 4 bells as well as the sanctus bell.

The sanctus which was rung at the most solemn moment of the Mass as the priest elevated the Host high above his head. This was to warn worshippers absorbed in their own prayers to look up in order to receive the blessings that were believed to flow from seeing the Host.

We can still see the deep grooves in the wall of the tower just above the west door made by the sanctus bell rope which for several centuries must have been rung by a man standing the other side of the door just inside the nave, in order to be able to see and time the precise moment of the elevation of the Host. This all came to an abrupt end, in 1547, with Edward VI’s Injunction that forbade the ringing of bells during Sunday services except for one ‘to be rung or knolled before the sermon’.

By 1637, Penn church was in a very poor state of repair. A visitation ordered by the Bishop of Lincoln reported that one of the bells had gone and ‘The butterices & corners of the steeple in decay & wants pgeting’ (pargeting or plastering).

In 1702, John Bennet, a new and active Vicar arrived and the medieval bells were all replaced by five new bells, three of which survive today.

The Rev. John Bennet (1663-1716), – The Church Bells

© Miles Green, July 2001.

We have, to my great delight and surprise, a drawing of the church, which pre-dates the major alterations by Sir Nathaniel Curzon, in the 1730s, that gave us the shape of the church we know today. Various clues suggest that the original drawing was made in the 17th C and is an accurate record of the church’s appearance at the time.

There is no written record or architectural evidence of any major work on the church in the 16th and 17th C, indeed there is specific evidence of the serious neglect which was entirely typical of many Anglican churches in the 150 years of religious turmoil following the Reformation.

We can therefore reasonably assume that this 17th C drawing also represents the shape of the Catholic church, in the late Middle Ages before the Reformation.

the chancel, the upper part largely rebuilt in the 1730s, about 8 feet shorter. The walls were covered with render to protect the soft clunch from weathering, and this was not removed until the 1950s. The East window was narrower than today, with diagonal leading and, almost certainly, clear glass had replaced earlier medieval stained glass. The ridge of the north porch was a foot lower than now, the buttresses much thinner and the door frame had different shaped moulding.

The drawing shows a tiled roof in what seems to be bad condition. We know, from a written record that the roof was tiled in 1552 at a time when most ordinary buildings were still thatched. Many churches in the later Middle Ages had flatter, lead roofs and earlier still they may have been thatched , but probably not in Penn where the manufacture of roof tiles was big business in the 14th C and where roof tiles were incorporated in the building of the nave walls and buttresses.

© Miles Green, October 2001.