Cherington, Gloucestershire

We ducked out of the rain into the porch at St Nicholas, Cherington. I didn't feel sure that the lions were properly old and Norman, mostly because they haven't got the 'tails under legs' theme. And they've got strange little heads. They look more like little cats than big lions. Which would be fair enough if you'd never seen a lion (it reminds me of a photo of an elephant and castle on Deborah Harvey's blog.  Maybe they're fine and genuinely Romanesque though. They were in a tympanum after all. And they're doing that affronted thing face-to-face. B was happy enough. Maybe this is an excuse to visit Many More Tympanums to compare.

There's a photo of the lions on Rex Harris's Flickr page. Wherever we go, he seems to have got there before us.

Since our visit I read on the British History website that there was another tympanum:
"A second more elaborate tympanum, said to have come from the south wall, is at Cherington Park."

Mmm more elaborate. But I can't find a picture of it on the internet (yet).  Wasn't it great when you could just stroll off with a tympanum and stick it on your own grand house. Cherington Park's just next door to the church. Perhaps I should have just gone and rang the bell. Maybe it was moved when Mr Baldwin repaired the church in 1815 and saw fit to carve his own name on the lintel below below the lions. Tch.

A slight Cherington update (8.8.14)

I noticed on British Listed Buildings that the other tympanum was still on Cherington Park in the 1980s, despite the building's 'partial demolishment' in the 1950s. So this is good news for tympanum fans. (All two of us.)

I've also found out what the tympanum depicts, thanks to my lovely InterLibraryLoan of Charles Keyser's 1927 book. He says: "On upper part a sundial with serpent above, a lion on left, and griffin on right. Below four courses of the fish scale ornament, and three rows of indented on the lintel." He also says 'Probably moved in 1816', so perhaps he had the same idea as me about it being appropriated when the church was repaired. It sounds as if it is an interesting design.

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

Dragons and Wyverns

It cannot be said that I'm totally wasting my time dashing all over the place, because I am actually learning a thing or two. For example, here we have my previously visited tympanum from Harnhill.

I've been reading John Vinycomb's 'Fictitious and Symbolic Creatures in Art', which you can download from Project Gutenberg. And so my previous confusion about our reptilian friend's lack of back legs is explained - he's not a dragon, he's a wyvern. Wyverns only have two legs and a nice tapering tail. There's even something called a lindworm which doesn't have any legs at all, but it can have optional wings, which probably makes up for the limblessness a bit.

I had childishly found it quite amusing that St Michael appeared to be wearing one of my dreadful school uniform skirts, unflatteringly flared and knee length. But, it turns out this is also totally deliberate. It suggests Michael is an Archangel. I think it's a bit of a management position if you're an angel.

Here's the relevant bit from the bible. It's from Revelation, which is a particularly Imaginative book if I recall correctly.
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

So in this case, 'dragon' has rather negative connotations, it represents evil and bad behaviour, and various other saints can be found poking or standing on the creatures - St Margaret, St Andrew, St Sylvester - and St George of course.

But when you're British, you know it's not all black and white like this. Dragons have their positive connotations too. It's interesting to look at how dragons were viewed in the era when the tympanum was carved. Check out the wyverns on the Bayeux tapestry - they're right by the bit you may be familiar with, where Harold has got an arrow in the eye. There's a wider image here in which you can see the red wyvern being held up, and a lighter one being trampled. These excellent (perhaps hollow) banners were those of the Saxon army. So the Saxons obviously viewed dragons positively. Perhaps when I've seen dragonlike creatures on carvings like that at Colerne, it shows that they weren't all evil and naughty at all.

Of course, the dragon is famous today for being on the Welsh flag. And this connection with the Celts can be proved to go back to 800 AD, since an allegorical tale of red and white dragons can be found in the Historia Brittanum (look at section 42 ). The dragons represent the native peoples and the Saxon incomers. Of course, it's possible (nay, likely) that dragons were important symbolically before this too.

To add to confusion, the Normans seem to have seen themselves as dragons too - there is a 12th century poem by Stephen of Rouen called Draco Normannicus.

And much later on, Henry VIIth, the first Tudor king, had a dragon as one of his emblems, because he was trying to convince everyone he was the right man for the job, ruling over both England and Wales. He claimed uninterrupted descent from the Princes of Britain - people (or legendary figures) like King Arthur and Cadwallader.

So in short, everyone likes to have the dragon as their symbol. And that is because dragons are excellent, and not just symbols of evil and badness. Anyone who has been brought up on Ivor the Engine and little Idris must agree.

saint and wyvern image © Rhiannon 2014

Chew Stoke, North-East Somerset

These two carvings are in the north wall of the graveyard of St Andrew's church. I only found out about them the other day, from the South West Corpus. I picked away quite a bit of newly grown ivy off one (it wasn't stuck fast) and cut back a bit of the hedge. They're thought to be early 10th century.

 With such worn stones, it's a particular kind of drawing enjoyment, because to begin with your resistant brain tells you there's nothing to draw. But as you work from one area to another, some sense begins to emerge, and that's satisfying to a primate brain. It also feels something like a process of recording. Yes there will be craftily lit photos in the Corpus book (and you can see photos in a 1938 volume of the Antiquaries Journal, albeit the wrong way up!). But there are things you can't get from mere looking, I think. There is something special about the process of drawing that helps you understand what the pattern is.

Both stones have had a hole put in them at some point. With the patterns quite faint, that doesn't help with interpretation. While I was drawing the one above, I knew there was something that didn't add up about the right hand side - (literally) too many ends not tying up. But now I'm refining the drawing at home, maybe it makes more sense. I think they just loop together where the hole now is. It's a large design and some of the ribbon is rather wide - in fact I thought I could see a border on one bit (rather than just a line down the middle) and that makes me wonder if a snakey creature is involved somehow. It's obviously not one of those neat symmetrical knotwork patterns. So perhaps it's more like something at Ramsbury.

This is the stone that's on the right of the doorway. It was very hard to make out anything but the basic shapes - there were only a couple of places where it was clear if anything was going over or under anything else. There are some clear spirals though and the two club-shaped foliage shapes. Maybe there was a cross in a circle in the top corner or maybe that was my imagination. It's pretty elaborate and seems rather different to the other Anglo-Saxon stones I've seen so far?

Images © Rhiannon 2014

Chelwood, North-East Somerset

This font is in St Leonard's church, Chelwood.

The more I look at these sketches, the more problems of dodgy perspective I can see. But they're only on-the-spot drawings so I'm not going to beat myself up too much. I think I've got something of the font's chunkiness. The nice little spirally scrolls at the corners are called volutes. In Codford St Mary we saw some much bigger ones on some columns, and they had an animal-eye effect. But these didn't really.

 Images © 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

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

Codford St Peter, Wiltshire

This church is more famous for its amazing Anglo-Saxon carving. But I was rather taken with the similar-but-different sides of the Norman font too.

At a glance, the sides look pretty similar. But I like the way there are seven flower stars with seven saltire crosses one side, yet six are matched with eight saltire crosses on another. The five vegetationy scrolls get two crosses each, and the six plain arches get nine altogether. The bowl's a bit wonky too.

Images © Rhiannon 2014

Teffont Magna, Wiltshire

Teffont Magna is strikingly pretty even for this part of the country. A beautifully clear chalk stream runs right past St Edward's church. Inside the building are two fragments of Anglo-Saxon knotwork built into the wall.

This one is the smaller. Perhaps the long thread on the left suggests this is an edge.

This one's larger but it's more damaged. There's a mysterious big hole on the left side, and beneath that the design is so worn that it gets very confusing to follow. That's my excuse for the muddle anyway. Eventually my brain refused to deal with it any more. There's another pair of knots at least below these. 

 Images © Rhiannon 2014

 Update: the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society journal   in the 1930s records that the stone illustrated at the top "was found while making the garden of Mrs. Heynes's house which adjoins the church." Not to mention that the slanting (as opposed to vertical) arrangement of the knots "is the only example of England of an interlace of this type." I wonder if that can be true. Mrs Heynes was very community spirited and "consented to give this stone to the Church for preservation."

Stapleford, Wiltshire

 Images © Rhiannon 2014

Pen Selwood, Somerset

These carvings are in the porch of St Michael's church.

The Norman lintel has a lamb of god in the centre. A canine-like creature stands on its right, and a long-clawed lion-like(?) creature sticks its tongue out on the left.

A king's(?) head forms the left hand capital of the door.

A wide-eyed king(?) with curly beard and hair forms the right hand capital.

The Penselwood community website notes the tradition that the heads portray King Alfred and King Guthrum. They had a series of bust-ups in this region in the 9th century, because Guthrum wanted Alfred's Wessex, but  after various aggravations they finally agreed on some boundaries. The Viking Guthrum turned Christian and changed his name to Æthelstan. Perhaps this was a ploy to gain the trust of the people he ruled. And maybe the stories really did later inspire the carvers at this church. I do know that the pair look very similar to the ones at Ditteridge.

 Images © Rhiannon 2014

Frome, Somerset

This pointy-eared creature is billed as Anglo-Saxon, but surely its jaunty pose and classic 'tail wrapped under the leg' points to a Norman date? It's not the same colour stone as the knotwork (below), which perhaps also supports the idea they're not connected. (I've since found that the South West Corpus book says it is Saxon though, so I suppose I should defer).

This Saxon fragment is clearest on the left side, and has at least one creature biting onto the 

knotwork. The zig zags (faint on my drawing) suggest there is definitely the snakey body of an animal (dragon?) here too - it's a motif present in the carvings at Colerne and Ramsbury.

 Images © Rhiannon 2014

Hinton Parva, Wiltshire

 Images © Rhiannon 2014