Priston, North-East Somerset

Bratton, Wiltshire

Photo by Rog Frost

Bratton church was in a strange sort of place. If you want to get to it you can either follow a long road from the other end of the village, or take a path which involves going down and then up these amazing steps. I was very taken with the steps. I don't understand why there aren't lots of photos of them on the internet. They have an ancient mossy air. I hope B took a photo I can borrow, because they don't look like anything much on that link. But in reality they were really something special.

I have to research and write a dissertation over the next year, and I've kind of decided it should be on the mosses that grow at springs in Wiltshire. It's a bit of a vague concept at present. And today was my first practical step into the idea. So where the steps at Bratton church stop going down and start going up again, there's a little stream, and donning some wellingtons I paddled my way towards its source. The site is called 'Church Springs' unsurprisingly. I collected some mosses but it made me realise my little idea isn't going to be as straightforward as I'd hoped.

But moving on from the bryology, what better spot could one have for church sculpture visit? Sadly, the church wasn't exactly replete with Romanesque interest. Someone had written that the carved heads on the outside of the porch were Saxon. Yeah right I Doubt It (scroll down), and I don't think we've ever seen such a Saxon thing as a carved head, it's usually knotwork. Wishful thinking eh. This might be tied up with the wishful thought that the church is there because of the springs, a continuation of pagan respect for them. But probably it's there rather because the village was there, and that was there because of the springs. Because you have to have water don't you. Respect can come from that of course, and the Church Springs are said to be unfailing (that's the kind of spring you want).

The font inside was evidently Norman style, but it was so neat and even that it didn't look old, and Pevsner called it 'recut'. It's a nice design (there's a picture here) but it didn't have that wonky vibe that the Romanesque Carving Fan craves.

Shrewton, Wiltshire

We wandered around a bit in Shrewton. That's because Maddington St Mary's is in the middle of Shrewton. And Shrewton St Mary's seems to be in Maddington. I can't begin to explain this. Perhaps I'm wrong. Today was quite a strange day. It might have been the weather (oppressive), my mood (peculiar) or the incessant guns going off on Salisbury Plain (like being in a war zone).

Shrewton looked old from the outside. But inside we couldn't really be sure that anything we were looking at was genuinely old. The chancel arch capitals were the most convincing. But they looked too recent to be Norman.  The chunkiness of the nave columns looked okish - at least the green and white stripey one that you can see in Neil MacDougall's photo here, at the back of the church. (More greenstone, you'll notice, like in other relatively nearby churches we've been to recently). But the carving on them was so neat and had an unconvincing texture, so we didn't find any of the trumpetiness credible.

The font was definitely neo-Norman but really rather good. Mr P says it's by TH Wyatt, who's responsible for much of the rest of the church. But he did well there I think. It's got a liveliness about it and it's pretty chunky. Far too symmetrical for the connoisseur of the originals! but lively nonetheless.