The Great Screen and altarpiece at Southwark Cathedral are a triumph - a visual feast that appears almost to have been planned intergenerationally.
The screen began in 1520, on the very cusp of the Reformation, but much of what we see was shaped by later hands. Its niches were restored and rows of angels added during the nineteenth century; most of the figures arrived from 1905 onwards; and Sir Ninian Comper enriched the lower stage with colour and gilding before inserting his altarpiece of the Risen Christ in 1929.
Each generation seems to have understood the underlying rhythm of the whole - adding another thread without unravelling what came before. It is less a surviving object from one period than a tapestry of devotion, renewal and continuity - centuries of craftsmanship drawn together into one commanding and joyful vision.
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