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.