The screen carries the initials of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon and carvings of Katherine's personal emblem, the pomegranate. It is said to have originated in Greyfriars' church on Plymouth quay, where Katherine landed before her marriage to Prince Arthur in 1501. Greyfriars and Blackawton were both 'satellites' of Plympton Priory, and the Prior had the screen moved to safety when the Dissolution of the Monasteries was about to be implemented.

Several of the images show the signs of the Passion eg. image 07 which shows a hammer, image 08 show 3 dice (of the soldiers at the cross?). They suggest that these images were painted before the Reformation and because they were not figurative they managed to survive the iconoclasts.

The screen originally ran right across the church, but the northern section is now missing. The screen was restored and reconstructed in 1964. Apart from the open tracery all the visible paint dates from around 1520.