Bathampton, Bath and North-East Somerset

Bathford, North-East Somerset

I didn't write down anything for Bathford when I originally went through the Pevsner for this area, but I recently found a Lead. The Bathford Society says when the church was rebuilt in the 1870s, the 'effigy of a bishop' was found. In my fevered mind I managed to spin this into the rediscovery by two Romanesque fanatics of a Norman carving similar to the Mary and Jesus one in Langridge. It didn't turn out quite like that. But we did find Bathford church packed with interesting things. So much for my Pevsnering.

The main doorway was evidently, typically, Romanesque. It's got a nice thick band of projecting chevrons, and these surrounded by some bobbles ('pellets') and a bit of saw-tooth ornament round the outside. Also our favourite feature, the non-matching column capitals. I always feel reassured we're onto the real deal when there's non-matching capitals.

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And the capitals are quite different to each other.

The left hand one is crisp and geometric. It's so unworn by time. It's rather sharp and exuberant. The right hand one is chaotic and wandering, it's organic like a load of liverwort lobes growing over the surface. Such a contrast.

Inside, the font is quite near the door (traditional spot for fonts, so they say). It's octagonal, which made us think it must be quite late. But I can believe it's still Romanesque, because of the solidness of the 'stalk' and the interestingness of the scallopy/trumpety arrangement. I think the pattern just changes alternately round the sides, but the combining of the low scallopybits and the high scallopybits gives an impression of randomness and instability. But really I think it's quite logical and mathematical. I rather like it.

Meanwhile, a carved head slumbered peacefully over by the windows.

In retrospect this is our favourite discovery at the church. It had such an excellent expression. I can't tell if a lot of that is coming from my brain's propensity to interpret detail out of the little dints and scrapes that weren't really part of the carver's intentions. I couldn't even tell you if the eyes are staring straight out or (as my brain sees it) closed and snoozing, with eyebrows above. But I liked it. It had that something about it.


Some anciently typed guff accompanied the carving. It said it "was found at some depth in the forecourt of the Crown Inn in 1933, probably having belonged to the collection of the late Mr Lavington, and having accidentally fallen into an excavation when works were in progress there." You what?! How B and I laughed at the thought of Mr Lavington wandering past with one of the pieces from his collection, and not noticing it drop out of his hand into a hole, and it going unnoticed by the hole diggers and being covered over. It seems ludicrously unlikely. It is ludicrously unlikely.

Furthermore, the head is referred to as a 'skull', which it clearly isn't (skulls don't have noses and lips). It's got some curious lines around it - is that a close-fitting hat? And there are some lumpy bits at the front. It seems to be carved so as to rest on a horizontal surface, not as though it was part of the decoration of something high up or vertical. But yet it's not at the angle it would be if lying down as part of a body.

Who knows. I can't help but think of ancientness and Anne Ross's heads in 'Pagan Celtic Britain', especially if we believe it was found 'at some depth'. But who knows. I just know I liked it.

Outside (in the graveyard where Nelson's young sister is buried) we sought more sculpture. Several things had been gathered in the shelter of the building near the chancel door. I'm glad they're relatively protected from the weather. But it seemed a bit unfair to tuck them away like this. There was a columnless capital with lovely perforated circles:

Also these three faces:

The left hand one is separate and seems to have a good thatch of hair. The other two are on the same piece of stone, which is interesting - could they be a double corbel? They seem more stylised and so they feel older to me. The left of the pair has a distinct ear (recalling Maperton's Minute Face) and a pursed expression, twisting his mouth to one side. The one on the right is also pulling a strange expression. He's got a stripe across the middle of his face. It can't be a bandage because the nose is uncovered. But it's not very convincing as a moustache either. So I wonder what it signifies.

Also next to the faces is this slab - if you visited somewhere and found only this you'd normally be very happy!This would have been great to draw but it was so very cold and my fingers wouldn't work.

We walked up to the top of the graveyard to find the promised effigy of St Swithun. It was a long way up. Again, it seemed sort of strange that the Victorian restorers would care enough to keep the carvings, but not care enough to actually keep them safe in the church. The good people of Bathford have recently renewed a little roof over the ones installed at the top of the graveyard to keep off the worst of the weather, but as we discovered, there sadly wasn't much left to protect.

The lovely beaded chevron column pieces next to 'St Swithun' are definitely Norman. They look like one at Langridge not so far away.

And there are two capitals, very worn, and they both seem to have heads carved on them.

        

 That could be a chin on the left hand remnant. But the right one looks clearer - is that a row of even little teeth along the bottom? There are definitely eyes. Is it a skull in fact? On both are the deep V shapes that are still on the main church doorway capital. They're interesting and it's such a shame they're so weathered! I wonder how decayed they were when they were first discovered and taken to the top of the churchyard.

 And what of the main attraction, the alleged St Swithun? He's looking a bit sorry for himself. But I think you can see a number of features that suggest the sculpture has Norman origins.

It's so weathered it's hard to see the details. It seems to be missing the middle section altogether. The figure is definitely clutching a book, which is a motif we've seen lots of times.

The chest has arcs that look rather like ribs. But I wonder if they're folds of clothing. When you look at the foot area, you can see fine lines which also suggest clothing folds. A bit too fine for my liking, I feel Norman sculpture is usually bolder. But I do like the daintiness of the feet, they're very thin and pointy, and remind me very much of the figure on the Cherhill font I recently drew from, or indeed from the sculpture at Stanton St. Quintin.

It's all a bit too worn and decayed which is sad. But it was nice to find.

I thought this church was going to be big and cold and Victorianly over-restored. But it had a very nice atmosphere indeed. I don't think that was just down to the extensive carpeting.

Ooh look

Oh sometimes I can't help laughing at my own amusingness. Although maybe this is how the sculpture was supposed to be. (I think I prefer my original interpretation though). This is photoshopped, honestly. You knew that.

Swainswick, North-East Somerset

The church at Charlcombe was St Mary's, that at Langridge is St Mary Magdalene, and finally we were at Swainswick - also St Mary's for some reason. A clutch of Mary dedicated churches. Swainswick church is much bigger than the other two and feels divided into sections - the chancel, the nave, a bit under the tower, the Kitchen, the chapel... it had an unusual feel but a friendly feel. Visitors were urged to make themselves a cup of tea, and that was a very kind proposition I thought.

The Thing at Swainswick seems to be carved faces. There were two Norman ones as headstops on the bechevroned / saltire crossed doorway arch. There were also some inside around the foot of the tower, but they looked more recent (something to do with their beardy style made me think this).

The left headstop has an enigmatic expression, but the right hand one isn't sitting on the fence - he's blatantly sticking his tongue out between his teeth (not an easy expression to achieve, if you try and pull it yourself). They've both got wide flat noses, which were rather reminiscent of a carved head now in the chapel. This was apparently found in the churchyard at some point. It looks rather enigmatic as well. It's very simple, staring straight out. I can't help thinking of Celtic Heads and Anne Ross. But who knows what age it is.

Also in the chapel was a floor slab in memory of John Wood the Elder, no less than the creator of The Circus and the mineral water hospital in Bath (the Crescent was the work of his son). I thought it was rather illustrative of the nature of life and death that this famous architect should wind up with a rolled-up carpet on top of his grave. I toyed with moving the carpet but B was more stoical and hurried me on. He's not even there, she said.

St Alphege's Well, North-East Somerset

In my pursuit of mosses and liverworts from springs, I decided that our next stop would be St Alphege's well, just under the crest of Lansdown. It was pouring with rain by now, that really wet sort that makes your hair stick to your face. I should have known better as I dragged poor B down the road in her Mediterranean puffer jacket and fashionable boots. But I had a vague recollection of coming here a long time ago and it being easy to find. Oh poor memory. We were soon faced with a gate saying 'private', a sight I always associate with angry shotgun-wielding farmers. I'm sure the people who live here are very nice but the pouring rain put me off walking up the very long drive to find out. In addition, as soon as I crossed the boundary, seven pairs of extremely curious eyes were immediately fastened on me - seven alpacas craning their long necks at the ridiculous sight of a soaked human being. I gave up pathetically, though I did find the little ditch where the water from the well runs down the hill.

I found the photo above in the aforementioned Proceedings and I do remember the little door from my visit over ten years ago. But further pursuit of this site must wait. If the trough in front still exists, I'm hoping it'll be home to some mosses.

In my defence of its inclusion, St Alphege was of the same era as the focus of this blog. He was supposed to have been born in Weston (below the hill of the well) and met an unpleasant end in 1012. But then you don't get to be a saint by avoiding unpleasant ends. The Proceedings say "A quarter of a mile from the well ... is Chapel Farm. This was originally St. Laurence's Hospice for pilgrims on the road to Glastonbury. It is not uncommon to find a Holy Well by a frequented pilgrim track, and this is a good example."  And I see St A. spent time at Deerhurst in Gloucestershire, which is home to a super-swirly font which I'm keen to see one day.

Charlcombe, North-East Somerset

Charlcombe font was such a treat. I've not really captured the niceness of its shape very well, which you can see better in this photograph from a hundred years ago. It's very goblet-y, and the decoration nestles irregularly around the base of the bowl in a very pleasing way.

In my defence it was immensely dark in this lovely little church. We have discovered one of the difficulties with wintery drawing tours - there isn't enough light. The churches today did have lights, but they seemed to be keeping some of them to themselves, the switches were nowhere in sight. I suppose they don't want random visitors switching on all the lights and then pissing off. At our first stop here in Charlcombe there were a couple on a timer which periodically plunged us into darkness. And I mean darkness, if we hadn't had the door open we'd have been scrabbling about in a ridiculous fashion.

I'm not really complaining though as this place was superb. B was extremely taken with the way the font bowl and base had been carved from the same lump of stone, so the pleasing overall shape was how it was always intended (we don't see that as often as you'd think).

The carved decoration ran all the way round the bowl, but it was particularly embellished facing the doorway. The petal-like design featured in some places what I can only interpret as mushrooms. That might not be what was in the mind of the carver but that's what they look like to me.

The location of this church is superb as well. I'd remembered it being closer to the road but it's actually raised up on the side of the valley, and below it is something very peaceful and special, a spring. The field below the church, in which it arises, has been kept as a garden, and as well as all the delicious mossiness and liverwortiness of the spring, there was a superb twisted ancient tree simply covered in lichens. I was delighted to see a tiny sprig of Usnea which surely only likes properly fresh air - amazing considering the proximity to Bath and its interminable traffic jams.

There seems no point in including my photo of the holy well - although our eyes were adjusted to the gloom, the camera was having none of it and I didn't have a tripod to hold it still. The result is virtual blackness.

Here's an extract about it from the Proceedings of the Bath and District Branch of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society for 1909-1913.
"Mr. Grey ... tells me he has known of this one, under the name of St. Mary's Well, for a great number of years. It is close to the old Norman Church at Charlcombe, in the Rectory garden, amid a clump of ferns. The inhabitants have a tradition that the water is good for the eyes, and some twenty years ago persons were known to come and take it away in bottles. It is also stated to be a "wishing well," and I believe the water is still taken from this source for baptisms. Mr. Grey gives an extract from a letter in which the writer states that a lady derived considerable benefit from this well, through applying the water to her eyes."

I suppose it's natural that our interest in fonts should be given an extra boost when there's a holy well in the vicinity that would have been used to fill that font. That's a pretty cool thought.


And as an erstwhile student of literature, I'm sure it gave B an extra smile to think that Henry Fielding was married here, and Jane Austen visited here.

The south doorway had some extreme trumpetyness going on, but I wasn't sure how truly old it was (it was very neat), and the north doorway is also alleged to be Norman. However, we couldn't see that one because a little room had been tacked onto the church to the north.

John Collinson wrote in his History of Somerset that "the common tradition is that it was the mother church to Bath, and that the abbey used to pay it annually a pound of pepper by way of acknowledgment." That may or may not be true but it's a fun thought. It's certainly a very ancient church (and has a more ancient look than the rebuilt Abbey).

Blagdon, North East Somerset

On the right of the altar in St Andrew's church you'll find these four smiling faces. They're part of a piscina - a niche containing a dip where a priest can / could wash the communion vessels. The piscinas we've seen never look very big so I'm guessing the washing isn't like when you do the washing up. It's about a more symbolic purification. Although if you believe, I suppose it's not symbolic to you, it's actual purification. Ah it's potentially very complicated isn't it. Especially when you introduce the idea of Transubstantiation, but that the C of E don't go that far. I think I'll just stick to the sculptures.

 

The faces are super smiley. You can see some photos on the CRSBI website. Those make me wonder whether the figures haven't got traces of arms - or at least, v-necked outfits. Since there's four of them, you're inclined to imagine they're the four evangelists.

Images © Rhiannon 2014