Bromham, Wiltshire

Little Langford, Wiltshire

It's not surprising if some of the carvings we visit come with their own folklore. The iconography is often a bit bemusing to the 21st century eye, and I guess it has been for a long while. A lot of the time the "official" explanations in the church aren't terribly convincing as fact. But if you take it as folklore you don't feel obliged to believe it. I've found some tales connected with the lavish carvings at Little Langford.

"There you are," said Pertwood. "One of the treasures of the Wylye valley! There are different opinions as to what the figure of the bishop represents. One version, based on the presence of his staff with its sprouting branch, is that he is St. Aldhelm, and that it was carved when St. Osmund was Bishop of Sarum. If that is correct, the carving was done some time between the years 1078 and 1099. It was St. Osmund who moved St. Aldhelm's remains to Malmesbury. 

Another theory is that he is St. Nicholas, patron saint of the Church, with the three balls repeated in pattern as his special emblem."

"It sounds more like the House of Lombard to me," chuckled Gullible.
Pertwood ignored the interruption.

"The three birds on the tree are given as representing three boys whom St. Nicholas restored to life," he went on, "or three souls saved from sin, with the tree representing the Tree of Life.

The oddest interpretation of all, however, is reputed to come from the local rustics. There is a local legend of a girl who went nutting in Grovely Woods. Out of one of the nuts came a large maggot, which she kept and fed until it became large indeed. Then, like an ungrateful dog, the maggot turned round and bit the hand that fed it, and the poor girl died. Your three balls of Lombardy are supposed to be the nuts, the birds and the tree are Grovely Woods, and the Bishop is the Maid."

"What a dreadful tale! How is it supposed to end?"

"Why you have the ending in the wild boar hunt. With fertile imagination, the locals turned the Maggot into a Wild Beast that ate up the Maid, then the villagers came out with their dogs and killed it!"

"Let's go in and have a look at the Church," laughed Gullible, "I can't stand any more of this."

 This is from The Warminster and Westbury Journal, 18th January 1952. I had no previous idea, but the House of Lombard is an allusion to pawnbrokers and their symbol of three golden spheres.

My interpretation of the tympanum at Little Langford

In the Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette from the 4th August 1864 (on the occasion of the entirely rebuilt church being reopened) I read:
"The old part of the church was built about the year 1130, the remains of that date being the old door-way and the font. Over the door-way would be seen a figure of St. Nicholas, holding a pastoral staff in his hand, and in the act of giving benediction. Beside this was a tree and three birds, representing, it was supposed, the grain of mustard seed, which was to spring up and become a tree, so that the birds would come and lodge in its branches. Underneath these figures was a boar hunt. Now, Grovely wood was once famous for boar hunting, and there was a field about a mile and a half from Langford which still retained the name as being the place where the last boar was killed in England. Behind St. Nicholas would be seen three stones, representing three urns of gold. [...]  Before going further, he might mention that the capitals of the old Norman door-way were pieces of very curious sculpture, which, he expected, referred to the promise of our Lord that the Christian should be able to tread on the adder and the serpent, and which they would find great interest in examining and trying to make out for themselves."

B and I certainly find great interest in examining and trying to make out the carvings for ourselves. But I'd take the rest with a little pinch of salt perhaps. To be honest, I almost don't want to know a definitive truth. Part of the carvings' attraction to me are their unknowableness and Numinosity.

In the name of cultural improvement I looked up this mustard seed business. It's in Matthew 13:31/32: "Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." Well I don't like to quibble, but Jesus obviously wasn't much of a botanist, or he'd have known that a mustard seed doesn't grow into a tree. It grows into that stuff you put in egg sandwiches.

Damerham, Hampshire

It's about time I typed up our visit to Damerham, part of our visit to the New Forest. It seems so long ago that I can hardly remember its setting. Perhaps this is proof that memories are created by going over things in your mind. Perhaps writing this blog is good for my brain.

The church looks very ancient with its squat low tower.

CC image by Clive Perrin

I don't remember the church being open. But our main quarry was the tympanum over the door. This is not the best rendering but it was our last spot of the day...

So there we have a long-bodied horse (with rather nice decorative mane and reins) trampling on a person trying to protect themselves with a shield (a person apparently wearing some knightly headgear and a rather fancy belt). The rider isn't so clearly delineated (at least from the angle we were drawing at) and his short sword is probably something to do with the replaced? bit of stone at the top of the tympanum. But what's that in the right hand corner? B and I stared at this for ages but didn't come to any conclusions. It looked faintly birdlike, with long legs and a wing, but I doubt that's correct. Perhaps it's something knight-related that a Norman knight would recognise. But to the modern eye it's rather bemusing. It looks a bit like a bag with arrows sticking out of it. But not enough to be that. There's a big photo on the CRSBI website.

Landford, Hampshire

It's hopeless to be without an OS map: you can drive up and down the long road in Landford repeatedly and have no idea where you're supposed to be going. We stopped at a new-fangled pub which had a desperate atmosphere. But I needed the loo and a fizzy drink. My dear sister took the opportunity to ask about the church. She doesn't care about looking mad and religious when there's a carving at stake. The directions were curious but we figured it out in the end. Landford's church is nowhere near the obvious Landford. We should have known.

It didn't look promising as it looked rather new (well, Victorian new). But its position high up above Landford did seem promising. I've now read that the church was rebuilt in 1858. It does seem that there was a rather obsessive Thing for doing this to old churches. I'm sure a lot of it was unnecessary vandalism - it's not that they were restoring what was there, but totally trashing it a lot of the time. I raged a bit when we found the door was locked, because it stopped us seeing what we'd come all this way to see.

This was to be a stone "2ft 6in by 1ft 6in, and has sculptured upon it the figures of two priests in full canonicals, with maniples at the wrist, supporting between them a Cross.  The stone is perforated with holes, each an inch square, about 8 in number" (to quote from the link). In the old church the stone was at one time in the foundation at the SE corner of the chancel. Then it was moved above the north doorway. But when the new church was built, it was moved back inside.

You can see a big photo on the CRSBI website, but here's another version, taken by Trish Steel. I feel like we're treading in her footsteps this trip.

CC image on Geograph

The stone doesn't look riddled with eight holes any more? Maybe it got trimmed. It's evidently two people clutching a cross. It's very like the sort of cross a Lamb of God might clutch (or rather, balance delicately on its foot). But beyond that? The CRSBI site suggests one figure is Jesus 'because he has a nimbus', but I reckon both of them have got that, it's not a Jesus-exclusive. Also suggested is St Helena and Friend. She is said to have dug up the True Cross, a bit like a female Indiana Jones, and because there were two other crosses there as well she tested them out on some dead/sick people and only the True one perked them up. A bit like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when there were all those different grails to pick from. But I think those figures have beards perhaps. So probably not St Helena if so.

Anyway. We didn't see it. But there were a couple of pretty nice Norman capitals at the door outside. So I drew one of them.

Manningford Bruce, Wiltshire

Next followed one of those wild goose chases which the searcher of things in the landscape will be familiar with. There were a number of churches marked on the map strewn liberally around a muddle of Manningfords (Manningford Bruce, Manningford Abbots, Manningford Bohune). Naturally, and actually fairly inexplicably now I look at the map again, I chose the wrong one. But I suppose we got a walk out of it along a mossy path in the rain, which we wouldn't otherwise have had. So I suppose it's not so bad.

Mr Pevsner had said MB was going to be a very complete Norman church. Which it was from the outside, with its small frugal look and surprising semicircular apse. But inside it was far too neat and restored and kind of disappointing (to me at least, I'm sure lots of people would love it). It didn't even have a contemporary font. But it did have the most amazing door.

It'd be nice to think it was original, it looked ridiculously old. We saw a W cut into it. W for Weird Wiltshire I suspect. I've seen W-ish marks on stone before and I always thought that was about masons. But this was on wood. So a bit more mysterious to me at least.  I expect the wood's like stone now anyway.

I have now found out something about this mark. I bought a copy of Matthew Champion's 'Medieval Church Graffiti'  which I can confirm is excellent and interesting. Not that it can give me any definitive answers! But as you can see here on the Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey  
pages, it's been thought that the W isn't a W at all, but two Vs for 'Virgo Virginum'. Who knows. But its apotropaic-ness is suggested by our example's prominent position on the front door.

Bathford, North-East Somerset

I didn't write down anything for Bathford when I originally went through the Pevsner for this area, but I recently found a Lead. The Bathford Society says when the church was rebuilt in the 1870s, the 'effigy of a bishop' was found. In my fevered mind I managed to spin this into the rediscovery by two Romanesque fanatics of a Norman carving similar to the Mary and Jesus one in Langridge. It didn't turn out quite like that. But we did find Bathford church packed with interesting things. So much for my Pevsnering.

The main doorway was evidently, typically, Romanesque. It's got a nice thick band of projecting chevrons, and these surrounded by some bobbles ('pellets') and a bit of saw-tooth ornament round the outside. Also our favourite feature, the non-matching column capitals. I always feel reassured we're onto the real deal when there's non-matching capitals.

,

And the capitals are quite different to each other.

The left hand one is crisp and geometric. It's so unworn by time. It's rather sharp and exuberant. The right hand one is chaotic and wandering, it's organic like a load of liverwort lobes growing over the surface. Such a contrast.

Inside, the font is quite near the door (traditional spot for fonts, so they say). It's octagonal, which made us think it must be quite late. But I can believe it's still Romanesque, because of the solidness of the 'stalk' and the interestingness of the scallopy/trumpety arrangement. I think the pattern just changes alternately round the sides, but the combining of the low scallopybits and the high scallopybits gives an impression of randomness and instability. But really I think it's quite logical and mathematical. I rather like it.

Meanwhile, a carved head slumbered peacefully over by the windows.

In retrospect this is our favourite discovery at the church. It had such an excellent expression. I can't tell if a lot of that is coming from my brain's propensity to interpret detail out of the little dints and scrapes that weren't really part of the carver's intentions. I couldn't even tell you if the eyes are staring straight out or (as my brain sees it) closed and snoozing, with eyebrows above. But I liked it. It had that something about it.


Some anciently typed guff accompanied the carving. It said it "was found at some depth in the forecourt of the Crown Inn in 1933, probably having belonged to the collection of the late Mr Lavington, and having accidentally fallen into an excavation when works were in progress there." You what?! How B and I laughed at the thought of Mr Lavington wandering past with one of the pieces from his collection, and not noticing it drop out of his hand into a hole, and it going unnoticed by the hole diggers and being covered over. It seems ludicrously unlikely. It is ludicrously unlikely.

Furthermore, the head is referred to as a 'skull', which it clearly isn't (skulls don't have noses and lips). It's got some curious lines around it - is that a close-fitting hat? And there are some lumpy bits at the front. It seems to be carved so as to rest on a horizontal surface, not as though it was part of the decoration of something high up or vertical. But yet it's not at the angle it would be if lying down as part of a body.

Who knows. I can't help but think of ancientness and Anne Ross's heads in 'Pagan Celtic Britain', especially if we believe it was found 'at some depth'. But who knows. I just know I liked it.

Outside (in the graveyard where Nelson's young sister is buried) we sought more sculpture. Several things had been gathered in the shelter of the building near the chancel door. I'm glad they're relatively protected from the weather. But it seemed a bit unfair to tuck them away like this. There was a columnless capital with lovely perforated circles:

Also these three faces:

The left hand one is separate and seems to have a good thatch of hair. The other two are on the same piece of stone, which is interesting - could they be a double corbel? They seem more stylised and so they feel older to me. The left of the pair has a distinct ear (recalling Maperton's Minute Face) and a pursed expression, twisting his mouth to one side. The one on the right is also pulling a strange expression. He's got a stripe across the middle of his face. It can't be a bandage because the nose is uncovered. But it's not very convincing as a moustache either. So I wonder what it signifies.

Also next to the faces is this slab - if you visited somewhere and found only this you'd normally be very happy!This would have been great to draw but it was so very cold and my fingers wouldn't work.

We walked up to the top of the graveyard to find the promised effigy of St Swithun. It was a long way up. Again, it seemed sort of strange that the Victorian restorers would care enough to keep the carvings, but not care enough to actually keep them safe in the church. The good people of Bathford have recently renewed a little roof over the ones installed at the top of the graveyard to keep off the worst of the weather, but as we discovered, there sadly wasn't much left to protect.

The lovely beaded chevron column pieces next to 'St Swithun' are definitely Norman. They look like one at Langridge not so far away.

And there are two capitals, very worn, and they both seem to have heads carved on them.

        

 That could be a chin on the left hand remnant. But the right one looks clearer - is that a row of even little teeth along the bottom? There are definitely eyes. Is it a skull in fact? On both are the deep V shapes that are still on the main church doorway capital. They're interesting and it's such a shame they're so weathered! I wonder how decayed they were when they were first discovered and taken to the top of the churchyard.

 And what of the main attraction, the alleged St Swithun? He's looking a bit sorry for himself. But I think you can see a number of features that suggest the sculpture has Norman origins.

It's so weathered it's hard to see the details. It seems to be missing the middle section altogether. The figure is definitely clutching a book, which is a motif we've seen lots of times.

The chest has arcs that look rather like ribs. But I wonder if they're folds of clothing. When you look at the foot area, you can see fine lines which also suggest clothing folds. A bit too fine for my liking, I feel Norman sculpture is usually bolder. But I do like the daintiness of the feet, they're very thin and pointy, and remind me very much of the figure on the Cherhill font I recently drew from, or indeed from the sculpture at Stanton St. Quintin.

It's all a bit too worn and decayed which is sad. But it was nice to find.

I thought this church was going to be big and cold and Victorianly over-restored. But it had a very nice atmosphere indeed. I don't think that was just down to the extensive carpeting.

Ooh look

Oh sometimes I can't help laughing at my own amusingness. Although maybe this is how the sculpture was supposed to be. (I think I prefer my original interpretation though). This is photoshopped, honestly. You knew that.

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.

Great Durnford, Wiltshire

In terms of Whoops Per Minute, Great Durnford turned out to be approaching the top of the league table. It has not one, but two Norman doorways with patterned tympanums. And inside, a stupendous font. And then - look at those weird carvings near the door jamb! And then! a big chancel arch with two crazy winged creatures. And on top of that, some swirly painting. And some absurdly ancient pews. It was all a bit much. There was much squealing. I also squealed a bit at the end when I saw a huge spider in the porch. But B assured me it was dead (as she quickly hurried me away).

This is the amazing font. The amount of work that must have been put into it is huge. But Mr Pevsner lets us down. This is his description: "Circular, Norman; short, primitive interlaced arches; band of volutes over." Mr Pevsner, really?? Is that the best you could have done? You didn't want to mention the little faces created by the design of the mini columns? The sheer number of arches? The fantastic swirliness of the Danish pastryesque designs around the top (which even put me in mind of the swirliest font in the world, the one at Deerhurst.. yet to be visited). Oh Mr Pevsner how tired you must have been not to have been more enthusiastic.

Here's the font in its natural habitat. We removed the cover. It was the most inappropriate and foul thing imaginable. If you've got a strong stomach you can see it in this photo by Rex Harris.  It's absurd, it looks like a silly hat. Yeah it's probably Jacobean. But that doesn't make it tasteful.


By the south door were these slightly crazy sea-anemone-like carvings. They reminded me of something similar at Lullington in Somerset. Those are over the doorway (and at its foot), which you can probably see better in this photo by Phajus. But they're not quite the same. I like the way these are different sizes from each other and a bit randomly spaced. The unevenness is just so appealing, so human.

The design looks properly folded over / pinched in (think Danish pastry again). To create something so organic out of a solid bit of stone is surely quite a feat. I don't know why they're down only one side of the door. I like them a lot. All this talk of food made me wonder if, since there are seven, if they were the seven loaves in the 'feeding of the 5000' (correction - there were 5 for the 5000 and 7 for the 4000. Who knew). But then where are the fishes? There are no fishes. So it's not that. Who'd pass over the chance to carve some fish. But maybe it doesn't need to be anything. Maybe trying to find Explanations For Everything is highly overrated (more of this in my Leominster ramblings).

Meanwhile either side of the chancel arch, perching on the roll at the bottom of each capital, are two creatures. One is very dovelike, but the one on the left isn't so easy to classify. It's got big (feathery?) wings just like its partner, and likewise three little toes on each foot cling to the capital, but it's not a bird. It sports a big cheesey grin, a fat tummy, and sticking-out ears. It might be tempting to see something naughty and impish in it, to contrast with the good dove opposite. But it doesn't look very naughty. Its eyes are outlined in a very nice Norman way: John Vigar has a photo here. He calls it an owl. I'm not sure about that though, they're not renowned for their smiles.

There's plenty more to be drawn from the photos B kindly took at Durnford. So I will do that soon.

Berwick St James, Wiltshire

There are always nice little surprises when we're out and about tracking our quarry. This morning's was the pack of alpacas opposite the church. They were very nonchalant though and refused to come over.

We couldn't get into the church, but luckily the Thing Of Interest was the north door, protected by an open porch. The arch is 3D chevrons, with a stripey green and white outer border. The tympanum is made of green and white blocks, and underneath there's a lintel with a carved diamond design (a bit asymmetrical, but that's what you expect and want from a Norman lintel).

The green stone is really very green. I've been wondering what it might be and where it might be from. Maybe it's greenstone, really green greenstone?! There's a quarry today that's not a million miles away at Hurdcott. We've not seen this stone used in doorways elsewhere as far as I can remember, so perhaps it's a rather local design. Mr Pevsner mentions its use at Stapleford (the adjacent village), but I can't find any photos on the internet, and I can't fully remember our visit (it was after our creepy experience at Britford). Perhaps we will have to return.

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.