Windrush, Gloucestershire

Windrush is an excellently romantic name for a village (and the stream that runs through it). It seemed to be another well-heeled Cotswold spot. And maybe it's a good job that it's well-heeled, because some money has been recently poured into the renovation of the church - specifically, its amazing doorway. Because the door here is surrounded by not one, but two rounds of beakheads. It's a first for us. I can't think there can be many examples of the Double Beakhead in the country. So it's excellent to see it's being looked after.

The beakheads have just been cleaned. And they've been cleaned very thoroughly. In fact almost so thoroughly that they looked quite odd. But I guess they can now carry on for another thousand years. They're on the south side of the chuch, and have a small roof over them to protect them a little from the rain, but nothing major. Perhaps their south-facing aspect has been what's saved them for so long. It would be nice if they had a porch. But they're so interestingly animated that in a silly way I quite like that they can see out.

SSH Conservation carried out the work. You can see photos of the Before and After on their website. You can see how bright and stark the doorway is now - as it would have done when it was first carved, an interesting thought. The faces are a bit different from the beakheads we've seen before. B called them menacing, as I recall. They've certainly got quite intense expressions on their beaky faces. Their almond-shaped eyes remind me a bit of insects or aliens! The characters are quite varied. They don't all have beaks to cling onto the roll of the doorway. The drawing above shows two non-beaky ones.

A silly thing happened as I admired the doorway - I took a step backward and promptly fell up the steps that lead down to it. An unusual feature, in my defence. I just sat down on my arse and lay there, it wasn't dignified but it was quite funny. I hope it at least gave the beakheads something amusing and unusual to see.

Chirton, Wiltshire (the return)

The church of John the Baptist in Chirton is home to beakheads and a carved font, both from the Norman era. Beakheads can't be beaten, and there aren't too many in Wiltshire.

The beakheads are quite small, but they're very varied - not just animal heads but hands and little figures. The columns featured a slightly less grand version of the 'hinges' we saw at South Cerney.

The font has twelve arches containing what you'd imagine is the twelve apostles. They were all reasonably individual in how they looked. In fact the more you looked, the more you realised that the designs that framed the figures weren't mechanically repetitive either. Most if not all the figures were carrying books but the one I drew also had a key - and that, it seems, would be Peter.

The design around the top was the very sort of thing that I like to draw. It's got some logic but it's also unpredictable. And it's organic and planty. The sketch below has two layers because I just ran the drawing on. What's drawn is probably about half the circumference of the top of the font.

There were also some very nice designs on the capitals within the church. They also looked pretty Romanesque in style, though they were so beautifully crisp that it was easy to wonder if they were really so old. I think they probably were though, they had a certain unsymmetrical bold look about them

Images © Rhiannon 2014

South Cerney, Gloucestershire

The Norman door at All Hallows has it all. You could draw it for weeks. Rex Harris's photo illustrates the beaky creatures, the zig zags, some neat flowers, and some amazingly intricate patterns in the innermost arch. I thought the latter even smacked of something interlacey and Anglo-Saxon... I need to draw them to explore the patterns (have to go back).

 

The door jambs have an interesting beaded motif, rather like stone hinges. They form little shelves.

I love drawing vegetationy scrolls. They're so easily overlooked. But if you draw them, you really See them. And I enjoy that, I feel like I'm properly interacting with what the carvers intended, nearly a thousand years ago.

 Images © Rhiannon 2014

Chirton, Wiltshire

 

 

 

I visited specifically to see the Beaky Creatures of the superb main doorway.

But luckily someone had come to clean the church and I was also able to see the figures carved on the font.


 Images © Rhiannon 2012

Lullington, Somerset

 Images © Rhiannon 2012