Millenium Screen

The Eighteenth and Nineteenth

The medieval periods were the great ecclesiastical building periods.  

From the seventeenth century to our own concern was for furnishing those buildings. 

If you now return to the nave and stand under the chancel arch, looking west towards the tower, imagine a wooden gallery projecting in front of the tower arch, and possibly carried on wooden columns.  This was erected in 1713, no doubt to accommodate the wind band which would have led the hymn singing.  ( Thomas Hardy in many of his novels featured musicians who would have played wind instruments in a church like this; there being no organ until the middle of the nineteenth century).   A church inventory of 1727, which lists items such as the chalice, the communion table and the pulpit, also includes "a pew" which indicates that most of the congregation stood or knelt whilst the gentry sat.  

The nave roof is a nineteenth century renewal.

Web address:  www.thelocalchannel,co.uk/memburystjohnbaptist