The church of John the Baptist in Chirton is home to beakheads and a carved font, both from the Norman era. Beakheads can't be beaten, and there aren't too many in Wiltshire.
The beakheads are quite small, but they're very varied - not just animal heads but hands and little figures. The columns featured a slightly less grand version of the 'hinges' we saw at South Cerney.
The font has twelve arches containing what you'd imagine is the twelve apostles. They were all reasonably individual in how they looked. In fact the more you looked, the more you realised that the designs that framed the figures weren't mechanically repetitive either. Most if not all the figures were carrying books but the one I drew also had a key - and that, it seems, would be Peter.
The design around the top was the very sort of thing that I like to draw. It's got some logic but it's also unpredictable. And it's organic and planty. The sketch below has two layers because I just ran the drawing on. What's drawn is probably about half the circumference of the top of the font.
There were also some very nice designs on the capitals within the church. They also looked pretty Romanesque in style, though they were so beautifully crisp that it was easy to wonder if they were really so old. I think they probably were though, they had a certain unsymmetrical bold look about them
Showing posts with label apostles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apostles. Show all posts
Saturday, 9 August 2014
Chirton, Wiltshire (the return)
Labels:
apostles,
beakhead,
Britain,
capital,
Chirton,
church,
doorway,
England,
foliage scrolls,
font,
Norman carving,
Norman sculpture,
Wiltshire
Location:
Chirton, Devizes, Wiltshire SN10, UK
Monday, 27 August 2012
Chirton, Wiltshire
I visited specifically to see the Beaky Creatures of the superb main doorway.
But luckily someone had come to clean the church and I was also able to see the figures carved on the font.
Images © Rhiannon 2012
Labels:
apostles,
beakhead,
beaky creatures,
Britain,
Chirton,
England,
font,
Norman,
Romanesque,
sculpture,
Wiltshire,
zig-zag
Location:
Chirton, Devizes, Wiltshire SN10, UK
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