English Religious Art Threatened by Heating & Insects, Say Experts

AFP

Worshippers attend a Mass link (AFP/File, Carl Court)

UNITED KINGDOM - They survived the iconoclasm of Henry VIII and the English civil war, but beautiful examples of early religious art in churches are now under threat from neglect and even heating, experts warned Wednesday. The painted rood screens -- the stone or wooden structures that divide the public part of a church from the priest's area -- depict saints, prophets and kings and some are viewed as masterpieces of medieval art. Many were destroyed in religious violence in the 16th and 17th centuries because they were associated with the pope and the Catholic Church after the Reformation. But of the several thousand that survived in parish churches in Britain many are now threatened by insect attacks, damaged by bat faeces or warped by fluctuations in temperature and humidity caused by central heating."This is a cause for national concern," said Catherine Cullis, churches officer from the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, which has raised the issue in its membership magazine, "Cornerstone". []