Breamore, Hampshire

By now our sixth sense navigating skills were in the ascendant. Considering the amount of Anglo-Saxon awesomeness here, we should have homed straight in on it. Painted scenes in the high porch, long and short quoin stones outside, a big central tower, and inside, a superb time-travel-portal style doorway with writing over it. An Anglo Saxon inscription - how unusual is that? Very unusual, I can tell you.

The arch is in the lovely green stone that we've seen further north around Salisbury. And the imposts have big chunky twisty rope carving, like a delicious barleysugar, in a softly coloured honeyish stone. It's very nice.

Behind the arch were two long velvety red curtains which picked out the paint in the lettering. This was also rather good.

The writing is said to say 'Here the covenant is manifested to thee'. So listen up and stop staring at the stonework.

Here's the rood in the porch. It's been grievously hacked about, no doubt during the Reformation, when religious nuttery got in the way of aesthetic and cultural appreciation. But look at those bright colours, they're scarcely believable, especially the vivid light blue.

Now the trouble is, those arms are in a very particular, arched, formation. And of course looking at this we were instantly reminded of the rood at Langford in the Cotswolds. There I'd been so certain that the arms had been put back wrong when the rood was moved to the front of the porch, because Jesus's thumbs were on wrong. But here we have the same position as the one I considered 'wrong'. So I really don't know what to think now.

On the sides within the porch are more paintings. Here's what's believably Judas hanging from a tree. You can see his feet dangling for sure. And you can see the roots of the tree. So I guess that bright blue colour was once green. But there's not much else to be discerned other than his coat.

The interesting Painted Church website says that this painting is probably 15th century. And mentions, interestingly, that Judas doesn't hang himself in the bible. In modern internet talk, it's not canon. The way Judas goes in the bible actually seems more ripe for gorey illustrations. It's Acts 1 v18: "Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." Gross.

I also have to show you the Breamore Lamb of God. Or is it a Dachshund of God. Sadly also hacked? Which seems a bit unfair and extreme.

Pipe Aston, Herefordshire

B and I have been to see the carvings at Pipe Aston before. But that was in the days before the Dawn of her Enthusiasm for the Romanesque. So it was interesting to see the look on her face when she realised what she's seen then, but not Seen. The carvings here are pretty bloody impressive, some of the best.

She immediately started making comparisons between the style and designs here and the marvellous font we saw at Stottesdon. These are top notch Herefordshire school carvings. And yet this is apparently a tiny church in a hamlet in sight of the back end of beyond.

 

Here's a large bird apparently pecking a smaller bird while a doggish creature spews what I take to be foliage at them. It's part of the carving on the tympanum. There was so much to draw... but it was frustratingly cold and windy so this was the only element I attempted outside. 

Here's the tympanum as captured by John Salmon.

There's our favourite, the Lamb of God, in the centre, with his little leg bent round cutely to support his pole with the cross. The cutely bent horizontal leg seems to be a diagnostic Romanesque feature.  He's also got some kind of radiating nimbus thing going on, but without any circular halo. Flanking him is the winged ox and leggy eagle of (I imagine) the evangelists. Not to mention more animals with tucked-under tails, plenty of patterns, a bit of planty swirlyness. The stones supporting the tympanum are serpenty and planty. Even the chevrons over the top are obviously excellent - they're single stones smoothed into a 3-d shape in a most satisfying fashion. The tympanum is in three parts but they seem different colours, almost as though it's not been broken accidentally but were always separate. Though that would seem a bit odd, given the strange angle. But who knows.

Inside, there's more Norman goodness. It's even said that the planty paintings on the walls are original, which seems quite crazy but perhaps it's true. What took my eye though was the sculptural goodness of the curious tapering small font. It's carved with two animals - one is a wormy tailed wyvern with two little front legs and wings. He's biting the tucked-under tail of the animal in front of him. I originally assumed that one would be a dragon but he's apparently four legs and a tail, and perhaps more of a lion. He's spewing out foliage and does not look best pleased at his tail being nipped. The circular scene fitted nicely in my new long sketchbook:

 

From the NLS's amazing map website

This is the 6 inch 1884 map of the village. Sometimes I wonder if a little bit more prior research could be a good idea... we had no idea this Motte was here, so close to the church. It must surely explain something - maybe this spot wasn't so remote as it might appear. It's called 'Aston Tump' and the Scheduled Monument Record  says it was constructed in the 1130s - a timber castle. There's a stream which flows down the hill here, forms a little moat round the motte and then pops out by the church - we stood and watched the water so doubtless we'd have noticed the 6m high motte if only we'd been expecting it! Never mind. The CRSBI page for the church suggests the carvings are also from the 1130s. So that's rather interesting. I am treating myself to a copy of Thurlby's book on the Herefordshire school which they cite.

Bishops Cannings, Wiltshire

One thing I love about this hobby... past-time... adventure round Wiltshire... strange obsession... is the strangeness, curiousness and sheer superbness of some of the things we find, which never ceases to amuse and thrill me. I know. You think I'm over-egging it. But how else can you be expected to react to something as crazy as the painting below. Are you just going to say 'Pff. Whatever. I've seen dozens of those. When are we getting to McDonalds?' No, you are obliged to pull a wtf face and squeal 'OMG'. Or something along those lines at least.

This is the back of what's been described as a wooden carrel - that is, a desk for studying at. It's kind of desk-like. It's not clear how old it is, but I wonder what could be gleaned from the style and spelling of the Latin, and the ruffley nature of the sleeve?

The writing is rather hard to decipher (even if my Latin were better), but I've found a transcription here in the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine for 1860:

The author (a venerable archdeacon) sniffs at a previous writer who 'both incompletely and incorrectly transcribed' the inscription. But curiously, he himself says something inaccurate - that the two lowest labels 'proceed from the mouths of a white cock and a black cock respectively'. But there's no black bird at all, just a white one - well, a grey one really. I mean take a look for yourself, you can zoom right in to see. (Someone drew two on this depiction from 1910 - were they putting it in purely because the archdeacon had said there were two? I mean that's bizarre - believe in your own eyes, surely? Or did they never see it with their own eyes, but thought they'd better put two birds in? It's very strange.)

And another thing, it's evidently not a cock - it's profoundly pigeony. B and I debated and agreed its pigeonyness there and then in front of it. Cockerels have spurs on their feet and combs and wattles on their head. This bird has neither. I mean get a grip, it's very basic ornithology really, we don't need to call Bill Oddie or anything.

Anyway, this is what The Hand tells you, according to the board in the church. It says 'Hand of Meditation' on the cuff, and 'What thou oughtest to think upon' on the palm.

To be honest I don't like being told what to think (I'm annoying like that) and to begin with I thought the hand was going to be religious and proscriptive and annoying.
Since on the thumb it says: Thou knowest not how much / Thou knowest not how often / Thou hast offended God

But we read on:

On the index finger: Thy end is bitter / Thy life is short / Thou has come into the world / With sin

The middle finger: Thou shalt carry nothing with thee but what thou has done / Thy life thou canst not lengthen / Thy death thou canst not escape / Thou shalt die

The ring finger: Thou knowest not whither thou shalt go / Thou knowest not how thalt shall die / Thou knowest not where thou shalt die / The hour of death is uncertain

The little finger says: Thou shalt quickly be forgotten by thy friends / Thy heir will seldom do anything for thee / He to whom thou leaveth thy goods will seldom do anything for thee /  Thy end is miserable

And to be honest there's no arguing with any of that (apart from the coming into the world with sin bit)  - so although it was a rather depressing read, it seemed quite pragmatic and fair enough.


The pigeon (or, I might allow, it could be a dove) says: Remember thy latter end and thou shalt not sin thereafter.

And next to it: Thou shalt not be a happy man if abundance of wealth flows to thee.  (B and I thought we might like a go at this just to make sure). Thou shalt not always be here; be mindful that thou shalt die. Wealth shall vanish; what thou has here, another shalt have. Thy body shall rot; what thou doest shall remain with thee.

Which again, is only common sense really. So I hope that's cheered everyone up now.

P.S. I was looking at 'Early Christian Symbolism in Great Britain and Ireland before the 13th Century', and it happened to mention how a dove is a symbol of 'the departed soul' - which would make perfect sense considering what our dove was saying. Dove it is then.

Kempley, Gloucestershire

Someone at the roadmap company chose to mark this. So I'm not sure it was really where we were aiming for, but as the brown roadsigns started appearing, I started following them. And after much windiness of road we ended up at St Mary's, Kempley. Our quarry was the lovely 'tree of life' tympanum pictured above. As the ancient structure of the porch obscured the view (see Nicholas Kaye's photo), we had to stand very close and crane our necks back (another of Mr Kaye's photos here shows what we were up against). I really believe that the design (as well as I could make out) was as wonky as above. So it's interesting to see the nearby unobscured tympanum at Dymock on the CRSBI website because it's so similar, but not wonky. I think I prefer the asymmetrical one really... it's one of those characteristic things the connoisseur of Norman carvings looks forward to :)

Inside the church was a rare treat - in fact, "one of the most outstandingly complete and well preserved sets of medieval wall paintings in England" according to its caretaker, English Heritage. Simon Jenkins goes even further: "the most complete set of Romanesque frescos in northern Europe".

Retrospectively it's interesting to see how the painting of the underside of the chancel arch echoes the carved detail we saw beneath the arch on our later visit to Marden.

Kempley also makes you wonder how colourful any number of these places were originally. Though it seems quite strange and crowded to the modern eye - like the Elgin / Parthenon marbles, we've become used to the stark minimalist look of the churches and sculptures being unpainted.

Perhaps I didn't appreciate the frescos as much as I should: a combination of turning up not particularly prepared, plus being surrounded by Other People - the latter being most unusual and strangely off-putting. You need a special sort of quiet to want to get your sketchbook out. But I'm glad other Romanesque fans were out in force that day (really).