Cricklade, Wiltshire

Another beautiful May day, so I stuck a stick in the eye of mild agoraphobic sensations and drove out to Cricklade (springtime home of the famous fritillary meadow). I felt about 150 walking down the highly picturesque high street (it didn't help that I walked in the wrong direction for some distance) but eventually found the church with its enormous tower.

High up inside the porch are two Saxon carvings. They seem quite unusual. The first really is as wonky as I've made it look - the ribbons are quite sausagey, varying in width, and they don't always match up very convincingly. But I'm not complaining.

The second one is insanely complicated. At first I thought 'God what am I going to do with this one'. But I took it slowly and worked from shape to shape and angle to angle and eventually the space filled up... it was very satisfying as to begin with it looked impossible. It's way above head height which did not make seeing what was really happening very easy.

It's sort of easy to see the Y shape as a tree, and it was sort of lumpy on the sides in a barkish way. But I've read in the Antiquary for 1892 that some people see it as a 'coped sepulchral stone' - I suppose the lid of a coffin, a bit like some of the ones we saw at Ramsbury. But I don't remember it being 'coped' (slopey) - I thought it was flat. But whatever.

From the Antiquary:
[There] are two stones till the other day built into the wall of the north porch of St Sanson's [sic] Church on the ground-level, in such a position that the congregation might conveniently use them to kick the dirt off their shoes upon before going into church. The vicar (Rev. H.J. Morton) has just had these stones taken out with a view to refixing them higher up in the wall out of harm's way. It was found that about one-third of their length was buried in the ground.

One measuring 21 inches in length by 15 1/2 inches in breadth is about half of a coped sepulchral stone, with cable moulding running round the edges and up the centre, and dividing into two branches, which run out to the corners. The side-panels are filled with much shallow and carelessly executed interlacing work without any admixture of animal forms. The triangular panel at the head is filled with lines which do not interlace, but take much of the form of a rough fleur-de-lys.

The other stone looks as if it might have formed part of a cross, though it has only one face, the other sides being rough and shapeless; it measures 20 1/2 inches by 9 inches. The whole face forms a panel enclosed within a plain border...

'Carelessly executed' is a bit mean but it is quite peculiarly wormy and irregular.

When I'd finished splashing on a bit of colour (they were indeed quite colourful, though through what I don't know), I had a perfunctory wander inside. It seems that I missed more exciting things - as hinted in the WANHS journal - an Anglo Saxon pilaster, a reused Roman altar with a burning ram's head (carving of, not actual - how exciting do you want) and some carved 'beasts heads'. I shall have to go back.

But as I walked back towards the car I felt completely and utterly relaxed, I felt like a Human Being. This is the benefit of visiting and drawing the stones.

Images copyright Rhiannon 2015.

Kelston, North-East Somerset

There's a lot to be said for visiting places with a like-minded companion, because without one, my addled brain misses things. I've just had an excellent time drawing the Saxon carvings in St Michael's church, Kelston. But I nearly didn't get in there at all. I spent quite a long time rattling the door and reading the friendly church-related notices in vain and writing an impotent and entirely unsarcastic message on how they could at least leave a notice about where to get a key. Luckily, as I trudged away in acceptance of fate, I saw instructions, large as life, by the gate: key at Vine Cottage. And doubley lucky, I'm botanically minded enough to know a vine when I see one: and so the key was mine.

But I'm sure B would have spotted it straight away. She might also have recommended taking a photograph of the stone. And also looking at its other sides (one worn side seems to look like a stone at Ramsbury). How did I miss these things? How can a seasoned font-botherer omit this basic stuff. I have no idea. I was too engrossed in drawing and came away ridiculously chilled out though.

(The top panel)

The stone has two panels of carving, one above the other. One's very organic, and seems remarkably reminiscent to me of the one at Chew Stoke. I suppose some might call it a 'tree of life' as it's apparently all sprouting from the bottom. You'll also notice a bit of the'classic Saxon motif', the twisted rope design. The other is more standardly knotty, but not in a strict regular fashion. Due to inattention I didn't mark any of the central lines in situ and just drew them in when I got home. So they're probably not entirely 'true'. But one imagines they'd all have been there when the stone was initially carved.

(The bottom panel)

As I didn't take a photo I offer this as a more realistic impresion of how the two panels look together. It's from 'Memorials of old Somerset' by F.J. Snell (1906). But he's not got it quite right either, he's been a bit elaborate in places and omitted the very bottom. But you get the impression.

Now I did notice this below - or rather I noticed a replica of it, built into the doorjamb. Because, like the stones at Nunney and Somerford Keynes (see the bottom of this page), some hell-bound piece of dog excrement STOLE it in 2004. What on Earth?? They must have brought a chisel and levered it out of the stonework it was cemented into. It was a very pocket-sized 3" square. It's obvious, and I've said it before, but if they did it for themselves, could they not see the irony, bearing in mind the subject matter? And if they did it to sell to someone else, could that person not see the irony? It's such a niche interest, it really makes you wonder who's responsible - can there really be very many people who'd want this? And if it's only about the money, it has no provenance they can admit to publicly. What Was The Fucking Point?? You despicable idiot.

 

So anyway the photo is, I admit it, taken from the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture of South West England, by Rosemary Cramp. But I hope that (hypocrit alert) the person I've stolen it off wouldn't mind too much, since if the actual object ever surfaces, it'd be very good to have a picture of it on the internet in the hope that somebody decent might spot and recognise it.

If we're to go by the sculptures at Langford, then with this Jesus apparently being without his shirt, we're probably looking at Norman not Saxon times. The Corpus also explains that the position of the feet is also important in dating, with side-by-side being earlier than crossed. It's hard to know from this photo though. Perhaps the current holder can elucidate (spit).

Drawings copyright Rhiannon 2015.

Stottesdon, Shropshire

B and I visited Stottesdon in mid-May. I (inadvertently) took a maze of tiny roads to get to the village. But even without a daft route I think it'd have an air of being a bit remote.

We've seen some pretty weird stuff in our travels but Stottesdon's lintel is very much up there with the weirdest. Finding it is an interesting matter in itself. I'd assume that the door it's over used to be a main entrance. It's at the west end of the church, under the tower. Today you have to enter from the south, and to get to the lintel you have to squeeze in the dark through a little doorway behind the organ. It would have been more impressive to come straight into the church by striding under the lintel - it'd have been quite a entrance. But the addition of the organ has made the west entrance an extremely dingy room that feels like a forgotten cupboard. Maybe I would moan if they turned it into a fluorescently lit tourist attraction. At the moment it's like stepping back in time, its setting gives it atmosphere, albeit not the original effect. But the 2 watt bulb (I'm guessing) didn't provide quite enough light to appreciate the carvings or take decent photos. And they are pretty amazing. They are pretty weird and pretty amazing.

There's a picture on Secret Shropshire that shows the fuller picture. You can see saltire crosses in the tympanum and also an enigmatic head at the top of the arch.

It was too dark to draw and it felt like a funny space to be loitering in, but I do wish I'd made some sketches at the time as it's very difficult to know if what I've drawn from my photos is strictly accurate. The photo above gives the impression that the carvings were whitewashed at some point?

But you can certainly comment on the basic design - it has two creatures which are upside down, and one which is the right way up. And even if the lintel is now the wrong way up, that's still one animal that's upside down! And what do the creatures represent? They're all quadrupeds at least. And one's got the 'tail tucked through its leg' thing going on. The upright one is sort of catlike. I think it's been suggested it's a lion. I wonder if it's got those weird long claws going on that we saw at Stratton. Or am I just misinterpreting an artefact of the photo? The creature with the tail-tucked-under has got quite a human face. And the final creature on the left - I found its head hard to make out. But the two upside down do have chunky long necks. That rather reminded me of creatures at Ramsbury. And what are those griddy bits next to them? All is very enigmatic and strange. I love that such a thing exists.

The other truly amazing thing at Stottesdon is the font. It is also fantastically ill-lit, as though the local people don't appreciate what they've got compared to practically every other church in the country! B and I opened the doors and turned on the lights to try and get a decent view so we could draw. It was a shame that as we were leaving, a woman bearing the church flowers arrived, and seemed more interested in our heinous crime of mistakenly turning on one of the outside lights on, than enthusing about the font. Maybe we looked dodgy (Strangers in Stottesdon) or maybe she was just very conscious of global warming. I'm very glad the church was left open though, so we could come in and see these marvellous things. Next time we'll bring flashlights. This is something of the designs on the font:

Images © Rhiannon 2014