The Victorians really did a proper job on so many churches, ie they whitewashed everything, ripped out the box pews, rebuilt things, made everything sterile and neat. And I'm sure sometimes if they hadn't done this, true, the whole place would have fallen down. But maybe there was another way, and maybe this church illustrates it.
The Churches Conservation Trust looks after it now, but in the 19th century it had William Morris to keep an eye on it.
Our original object was to visit the Saxon carving there. Here's MARIA (she's labelled above) and the baby Jesus on her knee. Except he looks far too grown up to be on her knee. And he also looks a bit like a lion to me (or at least, he turned out that way in my drawing). And there in the right hand corner is God's hand pointing down. I'm sure it's rude to point. I can't remember why. But there's God doing it.
Mr P didn't look closely enough at it because he wrote that Jesus's legs were 'pulled up high'. But they're not particularly. It's more that he's balancing something on his knee, which you'd imagine would be a bible. (Or at least the Old Testament. I mean they hadn't written the New Testament when Jesus was sitting on his mother's knee. I mean that would be ridiculous eh.)
Also there's definitely a hole and scratches round it like a sundial, so the carving must have been outside at some point. But now it's safe in a wall inside. You can see a photo (to assess Jesus's leonine features for yourself), again, on the Medieval Church Art blog.
Finding the church has added niceness because it is down a quiet dead-end road, and it's very close to where two tributaries of the Thames meet (the latter always seems special to my Celtic turn of mind). It would have been busier here in medieval times, but most of the village has since disappeared.
Images © Rhiannon 2014
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