SCREEN – This is of carved oak and was made by John Abel for the 1630s restoration. It has five bays divided by ionic columns on pedestals supporting entablature, the brackets enriched by leaf ornament. The screen was painted and gilded. The coats–of–arms depicted, above the inscription, are below with the inscription:
John, Viscount Scudamore / King Charles I / William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury
VIVE DEO GRATUS / TOTI MUNDO TUMULATUS
live in a way pleasing to God / entirely buried to the world
CRIMINE MUNDATUS / SEMPER TRANSIRE PARATUS
free from reproach / always ready to pass to the next world
(The text is identical to part of John Abel's market hall inscription in Leominster.) Features carved here include the five wounds of Christ, the later gap made for a reading desk for the Scriptures and carved heads of a serious face and a merry face probably meant to represent the sun and the moon (see Dore Article 34 – Update).
STAINED GLASS – Medieval Church windows were colourful. Fragments survive above the c.1632 Communion table in the southern ambulatory and in the Hoskyns Chapel. They include green fragments of a Jesse window. There is also a kneeling woman, the symbols of Saint Mark and Saint Luke, a Bishop's head, a hand holding an orb, angels, drapery, pinacles, decorative foliage, pear and pomegranatesprigs, and the Cawarden coatofarms with two wildmen. The 1634 east window, repaired in 2007, depicts the Ascension, Moses, Saints John the Baptist, Matthew, Mark, Peter, Andrew, Luke, John the Evangelist, James, and John the Apostle. The modern east end windows depict King Richard (Coeur de Lion), the Crucifixion and Archbishop William Laud. The Guidebook has photographs of these.
HOSKYNS' CHAPEL – The altar is John Hoskyns (1566–1638) of Morehampton's tomb. Among his appointments he was a Circuit Judge in Wales, a Sergeant at Law, a Member of the Council of the March, a Justice of the Peace and Member of Parliament for Hereford 1603–1611 and 1614. He was a poet and founder member of the Mermaid Group which included the M.P.s Ben Johnson, and John Donne who wrote some of the verses on this tomb. John Hoskyns spoke against King James I's encroachments on Parliamentary liberties. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London at the same time as Sir Walter Raleigh. Hoskyns composed the family motto: Bind the tongue or the tongue will bind thee. According to the diarist John Aubrey, John Hoskyns was granted the arms displayed on his tomb and over the chapel entrance on his release. However, King James actively prevented John Hoskyns being Mayor of Hereford. John Hoskyns helped draft the Petition of Right of 1628, chairing the House of Commons in committee when it was passed. John Hoskyns' son, Benedict, served as High Sheriff under the Protector Oliver Cromwell and purchased his baronetcy from King Charles II.
(A later Sir John Hoskyns was President of the Royal Society, 1682–1683, succeeding Sir Christopher Wren.) Two Hoskyns' funeral hatchments, c.17th/18th centuries, hang near this chapel in Dore Abbey. Commemorations in the Hoskyns' Chapel include family memorial tablets. The family continue to be benefactors of Dore Abbey. This is the only chapel that has been continually in use as a chapel since Dore Abbey's foundation.
