Avebury, Wiltshire (II)

More detail from the Norman font at Avebury:

Someone with a commercial eye would be selling scarves, lampshades, those paper things you can put round cakes... the possibilities are endless. I wonder if you're allowed to hawk round the stones. I bet there were always people selling souvenirs and greasy snacks at Avebury - it must always have been an interesting and strange place to be. Imagine when the ditch looked like this! It's scarcely believable. The font (pushing a mere millennium) is a spring chicken compared to the 4500 years of the bank and ditch.

By the way, don't think those are dragons being molested by Saint Whoeverthatis (Michael, probably). They've only got front legs and so must be wyverns, a different species entirely.

Image copyright Rhiannon 2015

Avebury, Wiltshire

If I thought the other two fonts today were complicated, they had nothing on the one at Avebury. This one has some order in its geometric arches at the bottom. But the rest is crowded organic foliage, animals and a human figure. There was too much to draw in situ so I took some photos, which I'll have to work further from at a later date.

Images © Rhiannon 2014

Yatesbury, Wiltshire

This drawing probably suffers from the curse of the font base, curse of the font foliage band, curse of the font generally. It looks quite simple when you first see it. But it turned out to be a bit of a challenge. I'm not displeased with it though. It's not a design like any others I've seen so far. The shield-like leaves have long stems tucking under the bowl in a very 3-D way. It was also interesting to note the lock on top. Can't have people getting at that holy water.

 

In English Church Furniture by JC Cox and A Harvey (1908), it says:

Fonts were ordered to have covers and to be kept locked for the double purpose of cleanliness and for checking the use of the water for superstitious purposes. The Bishop of Exeter, in 1287, ordered that each parish church was to be furnished with a baptisterium lapideum bene seratum [a stone baptistry well locked]. Archbishop Winchelsea, in his visitation of 1305, inquired whether there was a fontem cum serura [a font/spring with a lock]. A provincial English synod, held in 1236, provided that the water was to be changed every seven days. The rubric of the first English Prayer-book provided for the change being made once every month; the Scottish book, of 1604, ordered the fortnightly renewal of the water; but by the present rubric there is to be a fresh supply at every baptism.

I feel a bit sorry that there's never any water in the fonts we've visited, after all it is the reason they were created. But maybe having a reservoir of water isn't important to the Church of England. I don't think they go in for all that Holy Water business. You pop the water in, you baptise a few children, you take the water out again. It's not the water so much as the ritual. Next time you need a little bottle of holy water to fend off a vampire, remind yourself that vampires don't exist either.

Images © Rhiannon 2014

Fontmell Magna, Dorset

images copyright Rhiannon 2014

Castle Eaton, Wiltshire

Images © Rhiannon 2014

Highworth, Wiltshire

Inside St Michael's, in the centre of Highworth, we found another of one of our favourite quarries, the Tympanum With Animal. Unfortunately this animal is being rather mistreated. It's said to be a picture of Samson and the Lion. This may well be the case. He's straddling it and has a hand round each jaw (a brave thing to be doing with a lion). The lion has the characteristic 'tail through leg' pose that's so familiar from many other places.

I had a look at the bit in the bible that talks about Samson and the lion (being a heathen, it wasn't familiar). "..behold, a young lion roared against him. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand: but he told not his father or his mother what he had done."

It's a bit mean isn't it. He gets surprised by a lion and rips it apart with nothing but his bare hands? And is too ashamed to tell his parents? That's the implication. Along with the fact that GOD had some hand in it. God involved in needless animal cruelty. Then it turns out the lion is just some weird plot device for an riddle (as part of a story containing a whole lot more violence). Next time he's passing, he notices that bees have made a nest in the lion's innards. So he uses this wholly unlikely situation to say "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness". 

I can't be bothered to go into the biblical story (he gets cross and jealous and kills loads of people). Let us focus on the pleasant association, namely that the phrase is used on the front of Lyle's Golden Syrup tins. 

Image from Wikipedia

It's still utterly freaky though. And I doubt bees have ever nested in a lion. And golden syrup isn't made by bees by the way.

Back to the tympanum, you can see a picture on Britain Express. Where you will notice that somebody with no aesthetic sensibilities decided to carve a long explanation under the stone. If ever there were a moment to ask 'why oh why'... what a strange decision. As though their explanation was as interesting to look at, and as though it might matter in a thousand years. It's quite odd.

Images © Rhiannon 2014

Littleton Drew, Wiltshire (the return)

 

 Images © Rhiannon 2014

Upavon, Wiltshire

Curiously, the area around St Mary's unusual Norman font seemed to smell strongly of weed. Maybe it was the furniture polish. But the rest of the church didn't smell of it. It was notably weird. There wasn't any stashed in the font (I felt I had to check).

But more importantly, this font has an unusual eight exciting sides to draw, including two with some pretty amazing and fantastical creatures. There is one geometric side, one with what's said to be the Anunciation (an angel, a woman and a dove), and the rest are fantasias of foliage. Am I getting too carried away? Possibly. But it was a particularly concentrated burst of Romanesque-ish sculptural goodness.

This one could be a leopard - and check out his teeth and claws. Or conceivably, Ms Lion, to Mr Lion below.

 This panel is surely a lion because he's got such a furry head. But it's such a shame that you can't see his face, it seemed to have been chipped off. The more charitable explanation would be that the carving was so detailed that it kind of fell off. But it's still rather a shame.

Also with the putative lion was this truly crazy creature, like something from Hieronymus Bosch's imagination. I've read that it could be a sphinx. Or maybe a dragon. But to me it looks like a plucked chicken with a huge mouth, that's just eaten someone, and that's their head still in the creature's mouth. It's marvellously mad.

Up next, gloriously freehand foliage designs:

There are two more which incorporate foliage and cross symbols:

And here the nested chevron panel:

The detail on the so-called Annunciation panel didn't come out very clearly on the photo I took. To draw more than one or two things in situ is very tiring, it takes a lot of concentration! I can see a dove (the holy ghost?) and maybe Mary with a cross. She could be carrying a baby, but that wouldn't fit very well into the idea of the annunciation! Sometimes she's depicted spinning, but I'm not sure it's that, and sometimes it's a book, but it didn't look very book-like either. Gabriel (for it is he, if we are dealing with the Annunciation) also has a halo, and maybe has wings and armour-plated shoulders. It's quite difficult to say. Their faces in particular are very worn - they look a bit like Aliens. The plant in the middle has leaves that look a bit lilyesque. That would fit with other contemporary depictions - the lily being a symbol of Mary's purity. The angel is definitely holding something, and this is referred to as a sceptre in descriptions of other Annunciation depictions, but here it isn't very big, so maybe it should be called a wand, which sounds decidedly peculiar. But let's face it, the whole idea of the Annunciation is decidedly peculiar (unless you're a paid-up member of Christianity).

My drawings are a bit wonky, but then so are the carvings. I can only find one photo online, at the British Listed Buildings website, and curiously it doesn't show the most interesting faces of the font. There are so many photos of cats online, and (so I understand) of people in states of undress. But only one photo of the excellent font at Upavon. And that's just how things are in the world.

Images © Rhiannon 2014

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

Codford St Peter, Wiltshire - wild speculations

When we visited Codford St Peter recently, I drew more than the font. The church is home to an amazing Anglo-Saxon carving. There's a series of photos on Rex Harris's Flickr site. The stone seems to depict a light-footed chap with a hammer(?) in one hand and a branch in the other.

In the church leaflet, there was mention of the designs on the stone. It's like the stone is only half of what it was, it's like a slab from the front of something. The sides are clearly only part of a design. I copied the design and have made a mirror image of it to make a speculative whole. I'm not that convinced I've got it right. But you can see some things reminiscent of the winding plant-like tendrils we've seen at places like Ramsbury.

I feel reasonably happy that these are winding floral designs. I mean you can't see any otters, can you. Or fish. Or eels. I think you'd need a good imagination. So we were surprised when we read that the stone allegedly depicts such things (this was in the information leaflet in the church).

I tracked down the source of these speculations. It's the 1967 (v52) edition of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society journal, in an article by K G Forbes. I'm sure Mr or Ms Forbes meant well but I think they got carried away. And I think it's a bit of a shame that they keep getting quoted in things. They said the main figure has 'a luxuriant moustache'. We looked very hard (you can too). There is no moustache. There really isn't. And I don't think there's an otter either.

I think when you draw something you look very hard and it helps you see what's there and what is not, even when the carvings are worn and indistinct. The plants look symbolic or stylised to me and I don't think it's possible to say they're specifically alders or comfrey, or that the fish (what fish) are actually dace. But never mind. I'm not trying to be awkward, or cast aspersions on Mr/Ms Forbes. I'm just trying to point out that you should try to think for yourself, and not believe everything you read. Making close observations, as when drawing, kind of gives you a boost in confidence that your own observations may be right.

Images © Rhiannon 2014

Britford, Wiltshire

As Mr Pevsner says, at St Peter's at Britford there is some decoration 'that is unique in English pre-Conquest work' and he suggests it's from the 9th century. So you can imagine, I was rather eager to get here, I was very much looking forward to it. But it wasn't long that we'd stepped through the door that both of us felt a bit weird about this place. Thinking women from the 21st century like to rationalise these things - I mean was it the gloominess, was it the unnerving way you couldn't see into the transepts from the nave, was it the really awful and oppressive smell (of what? of what? of the flowers (no), of something far more revolting eww)? I don't know what made this place so horrible but it really was and we hot-footed it out of here, though not before I took a few hasty photographs of the carvings. We both felt freaked out for ages and as though the horrible smell was totally stuck in our nostrils. In the course of my weird obsession we've been in a lot of churches and none of them were like this, it was horrid. Everyone writing in the visitors' book seemed to love it, mind. It actually makes me feel a bit weird to think about it even now. But trying to forget about all that subjective malarky, the carvings are indeed rather interesting. You can read at length the debate about their age and origins on the impressively detailed Extraordinary Book of Doors website.

In these three pictures I've used colour to highlight the way the knotwork works. 

 Images © Rhiannon 2014

Knook, Wiltshire

These carvings are part of St Margaret's church, Knook.

 

Decorated capital on the south of the chancel arch.

 

The north capital has a slightly less formal design.

 

The tympanum over the blocked south door is intricately carved with interweaving scrolls and creatures. It's only faint and also obscured by lichens, so my interpretation is a bit vague. But that's a good excuse for another visit.

This is the short stretch of interlace that's been copied so it makes a long border above the altar.

 Images © Rhiannon 2014