Pipe Aston, Herefordshire

B and I have been to see the carvings at Pipe Aston before. But that was in the days before the Dawn of her Enthusiasm for the Romanesque. So it was interesting to see the look on her face when she realised what she's seen then, but not Seen. The carvings here are pretty bloody impressive, some of the best.

She immediately started making comparisons between the style and designs here and the marvellous font we saw at Stottesdon. These are top notch Herefordshire school carvings. And yet this is apparently a tiny church in a hamlet in sight of the back end of beyond.

 

Here's a large bird apparently pecking a smaller bird while a doggish creature spews what I take to be foliage at them. It's part of the carving on the tympanum. There was so much to draw... but it was frustratingly cold and windy so this was the only element I attempted outside. 

Here's the tympanum as captured by John Salmon.

There's our favourite, the Lamb of God, in the centre, with his little leg bent round cutely to support his pole with the cross. The cutely bent horizontal leg seems to be a diagnostic Romanesque feature.  He's also got some kind of radiating nimbus thing going on, but without any circular halo. Flanking him is the winged ox and leggy eagle of (I imagine) the evangelists. Not to mention more animals with tucked-under tails, plenty of patterns, a bit of planty swirlyness. The stones supporting the tympanum are serpenty and planty. Even the chevrons over the top are obviously excellent - they're single stones smoothed into a 3-d shape in a most satisfying fashion. The tympanum is in three parts but they seem different colours, almost as though it's not been broken accidentally but were always separate. Though that would seem a bit odd, given the strange angle. But who knows.

Inside, there's more Norman goodness. It's even said that the planty paintings on the walls are original, which seems quite crazy but perhaps it's true. What took my eye though was the sculptural goodness of the curious tapering small font. It's carved with two animals - one is a wormy tailed wyvern with two little front legs and wings. He's biting the tucked-under tail of the animal in front of him. I originally assumed that one would be a dragon but he's apparently four legs and a tail, and perhaps more of a lion. He's spewing out foliage and does not look best pleased at his tail being nipped. The circular scene fitted nicely in my new long sketchbook:

 

From the NLS's amazing map website

This is the 6 inch 1884 map of the village. Sometimes I wonder if a little bit more prior research could be a good idea... we had no idea this Motte was here, so close to the church. It must surely explain something - maybe this spot wasn't so remote as it might appear. It's called 'Aston Tump' and the Scheduled Monument Record  says it was constructed in the 1130s - a timber castle. There's a stream which flows down the hill here, forms a little moat round the motte and then pops out by the church - we stood and watched the water so doubtless we'd have noticed the 6m high motte if only we'd been expecting it! Never mind. The CRSBI page for the church suggests the carvings are also from the 1130s. So that's rather interesting. I am treating myself to a copy of Thurlby's book on the Herefordshire school which they cite.

Bromyard, Herefordshire

En route elsewhere, B and I stopped in Bromyard to check out the Romanesque carving at St Peter's church. I'd been super-organised beforehand and looked at the church's website - it said encouragingly that it was usually open all day. But it's so rare that we actually bump into anybody that we were a bit taken aback to find the car park full and the sound of jolly Christian singing in the air.

I'd missed the page that said the churchgoers were becoming a Missional Community. Which is lovely for them of course. And (quite seriously) I am very glad that someone's looking after this amazing building. And even (despite my cynicism) probably, that they're using it for its original purpose. I guess. If I sound mean it's only because the mindset of a Missional Community could not be further from my own. It's not that I disagree with the idea of local community, or being charitable, moral, kind, decent and helpful to others, not killing people, refraining from coveting your neighbour's ass or any of those other sensible Christian tenets. It's the other bits about believing in Jesus as the Son of God and a virgin, who died for your sins in a horrible way on a cross, the bits about angels and devils and Noah's ark and the bible being the inspired and direct word of God, oh and the resurrection. No amount of missional communitying is going to get me to go for any of that.

Here's St Peter and his keys. You can see a photo by Matthew Wells on Flickr.

So we wandered around the outside of the building admiring the lovely carvings, which in some way seemed even nicer for their slightly softened eroded look. At the front door another wandering touristy pair walked past us and into the church. We could hear them being offered alcoholic drinks. It struck me as a bit odd. I suppose Jesus liked a drink, after all he did turn water into wine. But it smacked of a bribe. Or maybe 'what do heathens like drinking? I know, booze. That'll lure them in.' Or a way to relax the unwary so they could be talked to persuasively. I dunno, it was just a bit odd.


We sooo wanted to see the font, it looks smashing. You can see the lovely carvings on the CRSBI website (one side is swirly, the other side an alleged tree of life).

But I felt a bit like a vampire unable to cross the threshold. The Pimms-clutching pair emerged from the church almost immediately, looking vaguely bemused. We decided not to go in.

Images copyright Rhiannon 2014.