Milborne Port, Somerset

B and I have resumed our adventures, but owing to endless hold-ups with internet access at my house, it makes me wonder whether I'll be able to record everything before it disappears from my head. We often have conversations that run -

- Ooh look at that, that's rather like the column at.. now where was it.. you know, that church with the doorway, was it somewhere near X??
- You mean the one with the trees?
- No no no, but yes it did have trees, but the one where we walked up that path. Did it begin with D??

These lovely "affronted animals" (meaning facing each other, rather than being offended) were on the tympanum at St John's church in Milborne Port. They're pretty cute (you can see the original on this link). The surrounding design reminded me very much of the one around Samson and the lion at Highworth.

The church is big and has remnants of Anglo-Saxon-ness - a massive central tower with much fiddly leaf-inspired carvings on the capitals. Unfortunately they were very high up and we couldn't see them properly. They weren't the bold simple style you might expect. We needed a ladder really.

There was also a Norman font, but it seemed to have been hacked about mercilessly. It had arches on the sides but they looked strange - I thought it must originally have been a square font made octagonal by the cutting off of the corners. The base was offensive to the eye. I'm getting far too fussy these days but that's what happens when you expose yourself to all the best examples.