Rowberrow, Somerset

 

We tried to visit the carving at Rowberrow but the church was locked and with no contact details. 

This photo comes from a 1909 book about St Aldhelm, by the Rev. G F Browne.  

The shape of the head is very reminiscent of the Saxon carving at Frome. The interlacing is very complex! and a free-form style design that concentrates on wrapping the creature in its own tail (such as some of those at Ramsbury) rather than the strict logic of say Teffont Magna.

Tockenham. More thoughts.

I can't get Tockenham's Roman sculpture out of my head today. It's because of something I was reading (curiously, in a book about Anomalous Big Cats). Merrily Harpur was describing how the household gods, the Roman lares and penates (or daimones to the Greeks), were intermediaries between mortals and the grander deities. Offerings had to be made to them to recognise how they kept things moving sweetly. The point being, that it struck me that in spending a few minutes observing and drawing the Tockenham sculpture, I'd probably paid it more close attention than it'd had in a long time.

The lares were the household protectors (later there were city protecting lares), and the penates looked after the pantry. Adkins' Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome tells you more.

After much googling, I found a photo of a similar sculpture found at Bisley in Gloucestershire. It's held at the Gloucester Museum but there's a picture on the Roman Britain website. It's very striking that the layout of the sculpture is the same. You'll see he's got the cornucopia, the patera and the little pillar (with no snake this time? or is there - what are those little bumps on its sides?), all in the same places. It was conveniently labelled with its name: 'Mars Olludius' - so maybe an example of a native god spliced to a Roman one, like they did with Sulis Minerva at Bath. Adkins lists 'Olloudius: A Celtic god worshipped in Britain and Gaul. He was a god of fertility and abundance, healing and peaceful protection, and was sometimes equated with Mars.' Bisley is only 25 miles from Tockenham. Could this not be a good suggestion? I feel quite encouraged. It'd be nice to see Mars Olludius in person at the museum.

I watched Time Team's programme about Tockenham, which is on 4OD. It made me happy to see Victor Ambrus standing there drawing where I'd been drawing :) His drawing was admittedly a bit better since he is an illustrative genius. Good old Mr Ambrus.

Various very interesting things came to light in the programme. They brought in Martin Henig from Oxford University (fluffy hair is de rigeur on TT) and he said it couldn't be Aesculapius as he wouldn't have been wearing a toga or carrying a cornucopia. (This is slightly unfortunate for the church, as it'd been renamed after St Giles, an Aesculapi-esque healer, in the 20th century - originally it was St John the Evangelist). He said the sculpture was of a local god or genius, and would have been brightly painted, positioned in the dining room or entrance hall of the local villa. The villa (in the field up the road) was enormous and TT hailed it as potentially one of the most important in the country.

They spoke about the large dressed stones (and skinny Roman tiles) you can see in the walls of the church, which would have been taken from the ruined villa. To my shame I did not notice these.

Another very interesting discovery was that of burnt grain in the sediments around the pond opposite the church doorway. The implication (other than it being used as a rubbish tip :) was that the spring there was sacred and the grains were offerings. This might even antecede the Romans, who knows. Adkins' book mentions food offerings for the household gods being made into the hearth, where of course they'd get burnt. The field now has a massive ungainly modern house in it, which seems a bit of a shame for a potentially sacred site :)

A final pond-related story revealed a massive fountainhead shaped like a fish, which Mr Henig proclaimed the finest he'd seen from Roman Britain. It'd been found by a farmer in one of his ponds. It's another piece of evidence that Tockenham was a pretty fancy place. Yet the field containing the villa looked like any other when we visited. Perhaps one day someone will have the funding to excavate further.

But is this a blog about Roman artefacts? NO. Normal service will be resumed shortly. You can see some pictures of the mosaics that were found nearby here.

My other post on Tockenham can be found here.

 Images © Rhiannon 2014

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

Compton Martin, North East Somerset

Images © Rhiannon 2014

Beckington, Somerset

St George's church at Beckington is home to three rather strange, rather large animal sculptures. They're kind of positioned to look like they're propping up the roof. But I don't think they are. They give the impression of having been moved perhaps. All are cosied up to the edge of windows.

Two face right, and one faces left. When they're mentioned on the internet, only two are mentioned - the poor creature on the other side of the church has gone unnoticed :(

When B and I saw them, we couldn't work out what sort of creature they are. They all have luxuriantly stripey coats - particularly the left-facing one, who has the pattern all over its body. Together with their funny little noses, and wide eyes, we wondered if they could be sheep. There were a lot of sheep figuring in the modern decoration of the church and I wonder whether Beckington made its money with them. But then again - what type of sheep have big fingers / claws? Nope.

They're generally described as lions. And perhaps they are lions, with their claws and stripey manes and silly lolling tongues (do lions have silly lolling tongues?). The two right-facers do have rather lion-y legs and paws. You can walk right underneath them and see the details of their undersides. Interestingly you can see the classic 'tail tucked between legs and brought over back' feature.

The CRSBI site doesn't even mention them. They looked pretty Norman to us, for their weirdness and chunkiness? Maybe not. It's curious there's only three of them, you feel like they've been saved and reused. Pevsner mentions them but doesn't hazard a date. He was a busy man. We can let him off :)

This is from a stone in the outside south wall:

It's rather like the saltire cross and dotted circle pattern that we saw over in the lovely Little Langford. Except they had a fancier three circles per section.

Images © Rhiannon 2014

Tellisford, Somerset

 Images © Rhiannon 2014

Tockenham, Wiltshire

The design of Tockenham's Norman font was very similar to Christian Malford's. It's a very pleasing shape. I feel very fond of Norman fonts. I mean who would go out of their way to see a sterile soul-less 'Perpendicular' font? Perhaps I'm getting fantastically narrow minded. But I can't imagine wanting to make a special effort to see and draw a precisely cut or over fussy design. The Romanesque ones have personality and some kind of realness - it's because of their slight wonkiness, and it doesn't matter if they're just geometric designs (rather than the ones with jolly animals).

And here's something else that's interesting at Tockenham's church. A Roman villa was excavated north of the village (in fact it was on 'Time Team' at some point). And built into the church just left of the main door is what's thought to be a sculpture of one of the household gods of the villa. In some places you can read it's Aesculapius (including The Journal of the Association of Roman Archaeology ) but elsewhere people disagree. Aesculapius does have a snake twirling round a staff - and I could see something similar on the sculpture, so maybe the latter at least had similar characteristics, namely, of healing and medicine.

 

You can also see a round shape above the snake - the ARA bulletin suggests it's a patera (a bowl for libations). Maybe it is, it looks like a Thing although there's no detail. And the bulletin calls the long-handled ice cream cone on the right a 'cornucopia' - the horn of plenty. I'm not sure it's especially horn-shaped though - in the story it was literally a goat's horn. And I do also wonder about the length of hair of the figure - could it be a woman perhaps? I know, men do have long hair too.

You can see a photo of the Roman sculpture on the Wiltshire Council website.

My other post on Tockenham is here.

Images © Rhiannon 2014

Christian Malford, Wiltshire

This font was truly lovely, so squat and solid, with quite a complicated geometric design. I particularly liked the tiny zigzags around the top. I think it's one of my favourites yet. Duncan and Mandy Ball have a photo of the font on their very detailed website.

The church was light and airy and had seats with extremely comfortable cushions. Extremely comfortable.

(And after the Upavon Font-Sniffing Incident, I suddenly noticed the same smell here. Not half so strong. But strong enough that I pressed my nose to the stone. It was there and I don't know what to make of it. Other than guessing that it could be something to do with incense? I feel confused.)

Images © Rhiannon 2014

Lower Seagry, Wiltshire

I can never get the bottom of fonts to come out right (this is the folly of drawing what you think is there rather than looking at it). This one has a Y design that we've not seen before. I guess they're kind of extended chevrons.

And here is something not Norman, but still rather cool. It's got a similar chunky look. This is from a monument of the 17th century.

Images © Rhiannon 2014