Marden, Wiltshire

Marden lies outside the enormous prehistoric Marden henge, but even though I knew it was there, I still had problems pointing it out to B as we drove into the village. It must have been a hugely important place in the Neolithic, surely no less than our more famous sites of Stonehenge, Avebury and Durrington Walls. It was built about 4500 years ago. So our church carvings at only 900 or thereabouts are positively spring chickeny in comparison. It's quite a thought.

Marden church (St Michael and All Angels) is a total gem though for the Norman carving enthusiast. The south doorway by which you enter is ridiculously ornate. There are zigzags, beading, steppy patterns and lots of flower motifs. It was rather overwhelming for the artist especially at the end of a day's drawing. You wouldn't credit how tiring driving around looking at carved stones and eating snacks can be. So I went inside to check out the surprises inside.

 

It seems that Marden has the most amazing chancel arch - so solid and wide, with chevrony zig-zags pointing in all directions. It's a little wonky (as you'd hope) and kind of flattened over the top. What made it really interesting was that the zigzagginess went under the arch and around the back. Which seemed very upmarket. It reminded me of a similar feature at the bemuralled church at Kempley St Mary.

  

Even the feet of the columns had a bit of decoration.

So thoroughly overwhelmed by all this I sat down to draw a little of the arch, the impost blocks from which it springs (if that's the right terminology).  There are little flowery motifs here as well.

 

It's so hard to know what to focus on when there's so much. It makes me feel very tired. I want to engage with it, and drawing the sketch above did make me feel like I had. And of course the arch will with luck be there for a jolly long time yet, if I want to go back and visit it. I know a lot of the enjoyment and benefit is about just finding these places and experiencing them. But I enjoy stopping and observing and interacting by drawing, and sometimes I feel I don't do justice to the location somehow, if that's not happened. It's hard to explain. Hmm.

Alton Priors, Wiltshire

Having probably ensured a lifetime free of vampires by eating the garliciest garlic bread ever at the Barge Inn, we drove to the churches close by at Alton Barnes and Alton Priors. I'm getting so picky that I wasn't that impressed by Alton Barnes. It was ludicrously cute really, as you can see by this Geograph photo by Kevin Farmer. But its alleged Saxon origins weren't that obvious to me. The two churches are very close, but there were quadrupeds (as Mr Pevsner would say) in the fields between and were feeling cowardly and drove round (it would have been much nicer to walk over the fields though).

Alton Priors is completely different. It's more isolated, like an island in the middle of a field. You have to climb over a stile to get into its enclosure. There's the most enormous yew tree (or rather, two enormous yew trees) to the south side of the building. I did my usual hopeful 'close your eyes and walk through the portal' thing, walking through the gap between the trunks, but remained in the 21st century. Ah well.

The church is much larger than Alton Barnes, and its emptiness seemed to give it a more interesting atmosphere. It's looked after by the Churches Conservation Trust. There are some interestingly carved Jacobean pews in the chancel. But I liked the ancient 'imposts' of the chancel arch with their dotted blob motif - definitely Norman (and an early kind of design? - it's so simple, it's reminiscent of the Anglo-Saxon things we've seen?).

I knew there were supposed to be large sarsen stones under the church floor. The 'trap doors' didn't have their handles though. I wonder if the CCT is fed up of people looking? I wonder why were the trap doors ever built? I suppose someone thought the stones were curious enough to be worth looking at (the floor and doors are quite new looking).

What with the stones and the massive yews it's no wonder people speculate this place is a bit special, with its hint of holiness beyond Christianity. And now I come to read more on the internet - it seems I've missed out seeing another excellent thing at the site. There are two spring-fed pools with bubbles coming up - the source of the Avon. We'll have to return. Bob Trubshaw talks about it on the 'In Search of Holy Wells and Healing Springs' blog.

Limpley Stoke, Wiltshire

This is not, I appreciate, the world's most accomplished photo. But it shows you something of the amazing narrow and tall Saxon doorway in Limpley Stoke's church. We visited it in August last year. It's got a presence, it's like a portal to another time. I admit it... I closed my eyes and walked through it. (Nothing out of the ordinary happened, I regret to say).

Apparently the church was first dedicated to the Saxon Saint Edith who lived at Wilton, just outside Salisbury, not so far away.

The inner shape of the doorway is reminiscent of the amazing glazed one at Somerford Keynes (but you can't step in and out of that one as you please). The jambs have strange holes and little triangular carvings with crosses:

Finally, another fairly poor photo to illustrate the pleasingly simple design that decorates the "impost blocks" (get me with my terminology) - that is, those distinctive sticky-out bits from which the arch springs.