Saturday 31 May 2014

Teffont Magna, Wiltshire

Teffont Magna is strikingly pretty even for this part of the country. A beautifully clear chalk stream runs right past St Edward's church. Inside the building are two fragments of Anglo-Saxon knotwork built into the wall.

My pen and watercolour sketch based on the smaller knotwork.
This one is the smaller. Perhaps the long thread on the left suggests this is an edge.

My pen and watercolour sketch of the larger knotwork carving.
This one's larger but it's more damaged. There's a mysterious big hole on the left side, and beneath that the design is so worn that it gets very confusing to follow. That's my excuse for the muddle anyway. Eventually my brain refused to deal with it any more. There's another pair of knots at least below these. 


Some digital art using one of my previous sketches.

 Images © Rhiannon 2014

 Update: the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society journal   in the 1930s records that the stone illustrated at the top "was found while making the garden of Mrs. Heynes's house which adjoins the church." Not to mention that the slanting (as opposed to vertical) arrangement of the knots "is the only example of England of an interlace of this type." I wonder if that can be true. Mrs Heynes was very community spirited and "consented to give this stone to the Church for preservation."

1 comment:

  1. I love the way you have used colour to show up the intricacy of the knotwork.

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