Wood Carvings in English Churches I. Stalls and Tabernacle Work. II. Bishop's Thrones and Chancel Chairs. — A Closer Reading

A Lost Continental Heritage

Bond's preface makes a pointed international comparison: 'Abroad, the great mass of stallwork has perished; sometimes at the hands of pious vandals, often through neglect, more often still through indifference to or active dislike of mediæval art.' He specifies that in Belgium 'not a single tabernacled canopy remains,' while France and Italy replaced Gothic stalls with 'Classical design that was dear to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.' Only Spain, he claims, can 'rivalled' England's wealth of stallwork. This framing positions the book as a recovery project for a neglected English art form, one that Bond insists is 'as English as the timber in which it is wrought.'

Documenting Parish Practice

Bond uses detailed parish records to reconstruct who actually sat in choir stalls. For St Mary at Hill, London, he transcribes payments: 'paid to three carpenters for the stalls of the quire, 20d.' in 1426, and £12 (≈£150) the following year for a complete new set. Later entries record 'mending of desks' (1501) and 'a long desk for the quire' (1523). At St Maurice, York, a 1416 visitation complained that the desks where 'the parish chaplain and the parish clerk were wont to sit' were 'unhandsome and in need of repair.' Bond also cites the 1494 Willeby chantry deed requiring the chaplain to attend choir in person on Sundays and holy days, 'in his surplice,' to read and chant as directed by the vicar.

The Evidence of Surviving Stalls

Bond argues that seating was common in small village churches as early as the thirteenth century, despite a lack of documentary proof. He points to Hemingborough church, Yorkshire, where 'stalls of graceful thirteenth century design' remain—and notes that the church was parochial until 1426, not collegiate. This physical evidence, he suggests, indicates that stalls were provided for the rector, parish clerk, and any chantry priests. The lower part of the bench at St Mary at Hill was 'made to form a box or chest,' hinting at practical storage uses. Bond's method combines architectural observation with archival research to build a case for the ubiquity and artistry of English stallwork.

Readers should approach Bond's text as a specialist's argument for the artistic value of a neglected craft, grounded in both physical remains and parish records. The 124 illustrations are integral to his case; the text frequently refers to numbered figures (e.g., '87') that are not reproduced here. Bond's patriotic framing—'English art, as English as the timber'—colours his claims, but the documentary evidence he assembles offers a concrete basis for further study of medieval church furnishings.

That rainy afternoon I spent with Francis Bond’s Wood Carvings in English Churches felt like wandering a quiet, candlelit aisle—each photograph a small discovery. The careful tracing of misericords and tabernacle work made me wonder about their Scottish counterparts. Later, almost by accident, I found myself turning pages of The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland from the earliest Christian times to the seventeenth century; vol. 3/3 — Text and Context, and the same patient reverence carried over.