Pilton, Somerset

After much to-ing and fro-ing along muddy country lanes, and past empty fields signposted for the Glastonbury Festival, we dipped down into a steep valley and up again to park outside the church at Pilton. It's a big church. It's got a big Norman doorway. The chevrons arching over it weren't evenly sized - there were a couple of small ones squashed in. The whole thing was so neat and unweathered that it looked strange to see the squashed-in ones. It made me wonder about the idea of deliberately not doing things perfectly, that they were consciously doing that rather than not caring. There was something about the neatness that said they were deliberately making 'mistakes' against their better aesthetic judgement. I don't usually get that feeling. I usually feel the bits of disorder are a joyful thing maybe reflecting the disorder of the world. I could be misinterpreting this. Who knows.

I didn't take a photo. I couldn't take a photo, my camera said it had too low a battery and refused to cooperate. We put this down to the pervasive Somerset weirdness but it was probably my lack of organisation and inability to use the camera. There's a photo here, it's the only one I can see on the internet and it's not very clear.

I suppose I'd mainly come here to take photos of the lovely glass in St John's. There were some obviously really ancient bits saved in the windows at the sides of the chancel. A hilarious one can be seen here. The only one I managed to take was this, showing two of the evangelists:

The glass was nice at Pilton, there were some camels in the main window over the altar. But not that much Normanness.

On the Weirdometer, I now discover that Pilton holds its own. It was (supposedly) the place where Joseph of Arimathea sailed to when the Somerset Levels were all watery - with Jesus of course. I actually thought Joseph of Arimathea was supposed to have got off at Wearyall Hill and planted his staff (which broke into leaf)... but doubtless he paddled about a bit, why not.