§ 53. The transepts, where they occur, were, as has already been said, used as chapels, or divided off into more than one chapel. Little need be said of the chapels on either side of the chancel, as the general arrangement of their altars and furniture was not very different from that of the chancel itself. The quire and chancel were divided from the nave by the rood screen. This important piece of furniture, usually of wood, but sometimes of stone, crossed the chancel arch from side to side; and was often continued, in churches where the chancel arch was omitted, across the west end of the chancel aisles. Where there was a chancel arch, the chancel chapels had their own screens. The rood screen was elaborately carved, and its lower panels were painted with figures of angels, saints, prophets, apostles, and other designs. The uprights dividing the panels were continued upwards on either side of open panels, sometimes treated as tall arched openings, at other times imitating the form of mullioned windows, and were framed into a plinth at the bottom, and a horizontal beam at the top. The central division of the screen was closed by folding doors: on either side of this entrance was sometimes, against the west side of the screen, an altar. At Ranworth in Norfolk the screen altars are enclosed by panels returned from the face of the screen: there are distinct traces of this arrangement at Weston-in-Gordano and other places; and, at Lapford and Swymbridge in Devon, there are large rectangular openings in the traceried panels of the upper part of the screens, across which painted cloths seem to have been stretched at the back of the side altars. Above the screen, with its floor-beams laid across the top, and attached to either face by a series of trusses which formed a deep coved and ribbed cornice to the screen, was the loft, gallery, or, as it was often called, the 'solar.' Sometimes, as at Montgomery and Llanwnog, the screen was double, the floor of the loft forming a roof to the space between. This upper story had a projecting parapet on either side, the front of which was divided into panels and painted. It was approached by a staircase, the position of which varied greatly. In churches with an aisleless chancel, the stair was contained in a turret to the north or south of the chancel arch, which was, if there was little room for it, sometimes built out into the adjacent chapel. At Dennington, however, where the loft was continued round the screens at the end of the nave aisles, the staircase is in the south wall of the south aisle. At Ropsley, near Grantham, the stair is in the outer wall of the north aisle, near the north-east corner; and the loft was approached by a bridge thrown across the end of the north aisle. In the aisleless church of Little Hereford, near Tenbury, where there is a very narrow chancel arch, the loft was approached by a straight stair in the thickness of the south half of the east wall: a right-angled turn at the top led straight into the loft. In churches with aisled chancels, the stair was commonly contained in a turret projecting from the outer side of the north or south wall, and there were lofts continued across all the screens of the chancel and its chapels. At Llywel in Breconshire, there is a fairly broad straight staircase at right angles to the loft, contained in a broad projection from the north wall of the aisleless nave: this was a favourite arrangement in Wales, and occurs at Patricio, and, in the more primitive form of a wooden stair within a projecting window, at Llanwnog in Montgomeryshire. Wooden stairs and even ladders to lofts were probably not unusual. At Totnes the chief approach to the loft of the stone screen was a stairway in a half-octagon, projecting into the north part of the chancel, from the head of which the way lay along the loft of the adjoining parclose screen. Few lofts, however, remain. The Totnes loft, which was of wood, is gone. Several Welsh lofts, owing, no doubt, to their remote position, escaped destruction when the general dismantling of rood lofts was carried out in the reign of Elizabeth. The most magnificent of these are at Patricio in Breconshire, Llanegryn in Merionethshire, Montgomery and Llanwnog in Montgomeryshire, and Llananno in Radnorshire. Less beautiful, but remarkable for the very perfect state of its painted back-board, is the loft at Llanelieu in Breconshire. But in remote English places, such as Blackawton, near Dartmouth, Cotes-by-Stow in Lincolnshire, and Hubberholm in west Yorkshire, lofts are left in a fair state of perfection.