Langridge, North-East Somerset

Langridge church is home to something rather special: a carving of Mary and the Baby(ish) Jesus which sadly has been literally de-faced. We could immediately see similarities with the carving in Inglesham's amazing time-warp church. But it was raining hard outside and even with the lights on, it was dingy. With the panel high up over the chevrony chancel arch, neither of us felt up to the eye-squinting and neck-aching that would be required to draw it. I kind of regret that now, though a revisit could be made in future.

Because of the low light levels I couldn't take a very good photo. You can see one from the 19th century on the Bath in Time website. They claim the copyright's theirs but I'm inclined to say that's piffle.. if it's still anyone's it's the photographer's family. But there we are, to avoid aggravation I'm not going to pinch it. The carving looks in the same spot as it is now, just that now the surrounding wall has been plastered.

I regret the soft warm light in the church is not reflected by this hideously harsh flash-lit shot.

Carving guru Rosemary Cramp writes that it was found originally in 1827 'in a rough niche in the north wall' and that local tradition in 1995 had it that it'd originally come from 'a chapel or chantry, the remains of which are now part of a farmhouse, which is on Lansdown just above the road leading through Langridge.' It sounds like the same place as frequented by the St Alphege well pilgrims!

But that may be just local lore... what does Ms Cramp have to say about the carvings as they are? That Jesus sits on the Virgin's left knee, and that he's got a book in his left hand: I'm agreeable with those ideas. She also says his right hand is raised in blessing with two fingers up. That's would be like the Inglesham one. To me though, it's not obvious if that's what he's doing. In fact B immediately called the carving 'Graduation Jesus' because he looks like he's wearing a mortar board and waving a rolled-up certificate. I can't really see this two-fingered business (especially sat here at home with a dingy photo to look at).

Mary's a bit different to Inglesham too. You can see her feet, which is not something you can see on the Inglesham carving where she's twisted sideways. She's got one hand round Jesus (that's very clear) and the other hand... again I can't tell what's going on. Ms Cramp says she's holding an object up, perhaps an orb (this feature is seen in similar panels). I'm not so sure, I even wonder if her other hand isn't going behind Jesus. It needs a closer look really.

Either Mary has lots of hair or a scarf over her head, and Jesus (rather than a mortar board) probably had a great big halo. But the faces of both of them have gone, presumably hacked off by idiots. Hacking off the faces of saints is one thing, assuming you don't like people praying to them and suchlike. But it seems like going too far to want to desecrate an image of your saviour and his mother. I don't know, religious fanatics. No sense of aesthetics or that anything might be important beyond their narrow view of the world...

A lot of effort went into carving the garments they're wearing - there are lots of folds and traces of paint remain even now  - you can see the latter on my photo (despite its faults).

Mr P thought it was 13th century, but Ms Cramp feels there's a lot to make it pre-Conquest, which would be pretty exciting. "Devotion to the virgin increased in late Anglo-Saxon England" and then "there is increasing emphasis on her power as a mediator, not just her tender acceptance of the motherhood of Christ." So Ms Cramp says 'this impressive piece' could be from the first half of the eleventh century, and may once have been housed in a (possibly female) monastic house. However old it is, it is rather good.

In the porch the door is flanked by two spiral columns with scallopy capitals. This one on the right had a bit of extra carving in the centre. I liked the way even the left and right had side of that single capital differed! There's a photo of the entire zigzaggy doorway on British Listed Buildings.

Here's another interesting thing we noticed at Langridge. I was looking at the superb chancel arch, it's got 3D chevronage in all directions (again, you can see a picture on British Listed Buildings). At the ends of such chancel arches, you often get a head stop. We've seen dragons used quite frequently - indeed we saw the ones at Dinder the other day which were probably head stops.

So I was interested to observe this:

Look at that, it's been shaped and carved into a pointy end with long lines. I'm going to invent my own term here, I'm going to call it a ProtoDragon. Because it looks the world to me like the lines of the mouths of dragons we've seen elsewhere. I was very interested to spot this. There was one on either side of the arch.

And at the foot of the pillars of the chancel arch were fancy feet, reminiscent of the design we saw on our last trip to Old Holcombe, with 'toes'.

There's much more to be interested in at Langridge, but this is already long enough for one post I think.

Berwick St James, Wiltshire

There are always nice little surprises when we're out and about tracking our quarry. This morning's was the pack of alpacas opposite the church. They were very nonchalant though and refused to come over.

We couldn't get into the church, but luckily the Thing Of Interest was the north door, protected by an open porch. The arch is 3D chevrons, with a stripey green and white outer border. The tympanum is made of green and white blocks, and underneath there's a lintel with a carved diamond design (a bit asymmetrical, but that's what you expect and want from a Norman lintel).

The green stone is really very green. I've been wondering what it might be and where it might be from. Maybe it's greenstone, really green greenstone?! There's a quarry today that's not a million miles away at Hurdcott. We've not seen this stone used in doorways elsewhere as far as I can remember, so perhaps it's a rather local design. Mr Pevsner mentions its use at Stapleford (the adjacent village), but I can't find any photos on the internet, and I can't fully remember our visit (it was after our creepy experience at Britford). Perhaps we will have to return.

Marden, Wiltshire

Marden lies outside the enormous prehistoric Marden henge, but even though I knew it was there, I still had problems pointing it out to B as we drove into the village. It must have been a hugely important place in the Neolithic, surely no less than our more famous sites of Stonehenge, Avebury and Durrington Walls. It was built about 4500 years ago. So our church carvings at only 900 or thereabouts are positively spring chickeny in comparison. It's quite a thought.

Marden church (St Michael and All Angels) is a total gem though for the Norman carving enthusiast. The south doorway by which you enter is ridiculously ornate. There are zigzags, beading, steppy patterns and lots of flower motifs. It was rather overwhelming for the artist especially at the end of a day's drawing. You wouldn't credit how tiring driving around looking at carved stones and eating snacks can be. So I went inside to check out the surprises inside.

 

It seems that Marden has the most amazing chancel arch - so solid and wide, with chevrony zig-zags pointing in all directions. It's a little wonky (as you'd hope) and kind of flattened over the top. What made it really interesting was that the zigzagginess went under the arch and around the back. Which seemed very upmarket. It reminded me of a similar feature at the bemuralled church at Kempley St Mary.

  

Even the feet of the columns had a bit of decoration.

So thoroughly overwhelmed by all this I sat down to draw a little of the arch, the impost blocks from which it springs (if that's the right terminology).  There are little flowery motifs here as well.

 

It's so hard to know what to focus on when there's so much. It makes me feel very tired. I want to engage with it, and drawing the sketch above did make me feel like I had. And of course the arch will with luck be there for a jolly long time yet, if I want to go back and visit it. I know a lot of the enjoyment and benefit is about just finding these places and experiencing them. But I enjoy stopping and observing and interacting by drawing, and sometimes I feel I don't do justice to the location somehow, if that's not happened. It's hard to explain. Hmm.

Sutton Veny, Wiltshire

It seems interesting (to me at least) that this ruined church is pretty much in the same line as a number of prehistoric barrows parallel to the lovely River Wylye. Why did the prehistoric barrow builders think this a good spot, I wonder. Did the builders of the church follow in their footsteps deliberately? It wasn't such a great spot for a building though, as it was too damp for the foundations - apparently why the church was eventually abandoned and rebuilt elsewhere. Although that was in the 19th century and you'd think it'd have fallen down long before if things were so bad. I fear the all-too-familiar smell of the over enthusiastic victorian meddler.

There's an ancient yew tree as well, but I didn't notice it at the time, despite its 15 foot circumference. The graph on this page suggests that would make it a paltry :) 650 years old, not old enough for the connoisseur of Romanesque sculpture of course.

The church was obviously quite big. The only Norman bit of the building is the arch in the picture above. It looks quite strange because the arch and lintel are intact, but the tympanum has fallen out. The capitals remain hanging there without their pillars, rather like at Coulston. The carving on the capitals is very eroded.

This wasn't the most atmospheric of spots, mostly because the churchyard had been mowed to within an inch of its life. So it felt more sterile than spooky, not really what you'd expect from a ruin. It did have some curious gravestones made of metal though, which have got to be quite unusual you'd think. The substrate was not deterring the lichens, who had still made their home on it, so it wasn't immediately obvious what the marker was made of. I rapped with my knuckles cautiously, feeling like I was knocking on a door. To be fair I think we were both quite tired by then and the sun had been beating down on my head for a while.

Compton Greenfield, South Gloucestershire

Compton Greenfield church is no distance from the M5 and the huge queues of traffic for the Catbrain Temple of Consumerism (Cribbs Causeway). But it feels a world away. It's my favourite sort of church spot really, up a long dead-end road, in amongst fields. The churchyard had a big rose garden and smelt lovely. The church wasn't open but the superb door is in the open porch so all was ok.

This is the slightly mind-boggling pattern around the door:

This was much more complicated than I'd expected. It seems pretty impressive for an out-of-the-way small church. I like the irregularity of the chevrons even though the repetitiveness is so fundamental.

I'd picked this place for my visit because I'd heard it had 'reptilian creatures' - in fact, it's got four, one each side of the door and two guarding the outside of the porch. It seems rather grand to have four of them.

This one's outside and seems a bit toothier than the pair in the porch. I wondered if they could be later copies but the outside columns have a scalloped Norman look to them so maybe the headstops are completely real. All four have these cute little curly horns - I don't think I've seen that touch anywhere else before. They're reminiscent of some beakheads we've seen, I can just imagine them biting the arch at somewhere like Chirton.

Above is the design on the capital on the right of the door. It's got the decorative holes that I'm sure we've seen elsewhere. And even a bit of intertwining which is reminiscent of Saxon knotwork. And of course the nice fingery fans (which must have an official name if only I knew it). The design on the other capital almost has a face derived from these. But I think that might be my imagination.

And this is my rendering of the inside right-hand creature with his big ears and starey eyes.

I found an old photo of the doorway in Memorials of Old Gloucestershire (1911) - the article is by Mr Keyser, writer of a book about carved Norman tympana (I'm sure B will be pleased, and I personally feel like his devotee. How strange this Norman carving obsession is, but how nice it is to find someone else who felt the same, albeit 100 years ago). I think the article will give me plenty of further Leads.

Looking at the map, I guess this church is on the route between Bristol and where people might have crossed the Severn to get to and from Wales. Though I'm not sure why that would have made it more likely to have fancy carvings. Maybe that's irrelevent. Who knows.

Images © Rhiannon 2015

Queen Charlton, North-East Somerset

I'm not sure when I drew this, it would be a couple of years ago perhaps? I had to stand in the road and balance my pot of ink on the wall opposite. The archway isn't part of the church, it's a little way down the road and the wonky gate opens onto a little field. It's rather peculiar to find such a thing. There's a photo by Rick Crowley here but I think someone has cemented back the bit that had fallen off, I don't remember such a wound.

In "Famous Houses of Bath and District" by J F Meehan (1901), it says:
This handsome archway, with its decorated indented mouldings, formed the entrance to the court-house, and was built for the Abbot of Keynsham, with his retinue, to pass under when he visited Queen Charlton on religious business, and is still in fairly good preservation."

I'm not sure if that's really very believable as it's quite small. I imagined the Abbot having to get off his horse to go through it, in an undignified manner. According to its Listed Building record the arch may have come from the church and been set as a 'garden feature' in the 19th century (but see below). The church certainly has other Norman features - I would like to visit soon.

It's in no way as big as the book's accompanying drawing suggests, unless this figure is a pixie:

Perhaps the engraver had a simple sketch to work from and added a person for interest. I don't know what's going on with that dog either (although it does look a more convincing size) - what's the white thing next to it?

Incidentally, the Queen of Queen Chalton is "apparently" Catherine Parr: Henry the Eighth's last wife. Presumably this was to do with Keynsham Abbey's wealth being snatched at the Dissolution. But nobody calls Keynsham, 'Queen Keynsham', do they? This factoid is repeated many times on the web. But I think I've found its source: the diligent John Collinson and his 1791 'History and Antiquities of the County of Somerset' (volume 2).

After the suppression of the monastery, the manor of Charleton, among other possessions, was settled in jointure on Catherine Parr, the last Queen of King Henry VIII. from which circumstance the parish obtained its name [...]

 also
 The great road to Bath lay formerly through the village; and on account of the salubrity of its air, it has been a place of much resort; particularly in the year 1574, when the plague raged so violently in Bristol, as to carry off two thousand persons, houses were fitted up here for the reception of families from that city. Queen Elizabeth had gone through this place the year before, and granted it a charter for a fair to be held yearly on the twentieth day of July, which fair is still continued.

So you can even imagine the village being named after Queen Elizabeth - at least she turned up.

 He mentions the arch - apparently disproving the idea in the listed buildings statement that the arch is a 19th century displacement:
The abbot's court-house stood on the north side of the street: nothing of it now remains except an old gateway, the arch of which is circular, and decorated with zigzag mouldings.

Now all we have to do is get Time Team in to check whether the abbot's court house existed.

Drawing copyright Rhiannon 2015.

Coulston, Wiltshire

We couldn't get into the church at Coulston, which was a shame, and there was no information about where to get a key. But perhaps it didn't matter because most of Mr P's promised interestingness was outside.

In the south side of the building is a Norman doorway with a lovely golden round arch. On each side is a capital with little volutes (a bit eroded). But curiously, although there are these capitals, there aren't any columns underneath them. And it doesn't even look as though there were any - that is, there's no mark on the stone to suggest they've been whipped away. But I suppose there must have been once.

The poor arch looks rather neglected since someone's seen fit to pile up a load of plastic chairs underneath it. It looked strangely surreal, so I didn't feel as outraged as I might. But to most people it would surely look a bit rubbish. I don't really understand, because I don't find anything very interesting about all these brash Victorian rebuildings of churches. And so if you've got something left of the interesting past, of the beginnings of your church, why wouldn't you look after it? Maybe the congregation would say that there's more to their church than the building, in fact that the building's probably the least important bit. I dunno. It was a bit disappointing to see, anyway.

But another truly interesting thing outside was the spring coming out of the hillside facing the archway. As we stepped gingerly across the marshy ground towards it, we were watched closely by many eyes. The spring is inside a deer park and a couple of stags and many female deer lined up on the ridge above us. We seemed very interesting to them for some reason.

The water runs into a pool where there was a lot of watercress. Then we could hear it heading under the path past the church. The area had a special and rather strange air. It was hard not to think of elfish pagan things and whether or not the site for the church had been chosen in relation to this water.

(An interesting though morbid little snippet, is that the murdered child in the Victorian 'Rode House' case (recently retold in 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher'), is buried in this churchyard. The family previously lived at Baynton House nearby, and the father's first wife is also buried here).

Images copyright Rhiannon 2014.

Twerton, Bath, North-East Somerset

These large-fanged creatures are in the porch of St Michael and All Angels, Twerton. 

 

There's a photo of the real thing on the Proud of Twerton website. The presumably Victorian inscription (the door was moved in the 19th century) is from Genesis 28:17.

 Images © Rhiannon 2014

Malmesbury, Wiltshire

The front of Malmesbury Abbey is quite spectacular. Trying to draw even a tiny part of it makes you appreciate something of how detailed and complicated it is.

 

This is a section of the arch that goes over the door (it's actually even wider).

 Images © Rhiannon 2014