Colerne, Wiltshire (II)

We visited Colerne and its dragons back last May. I really enjoyed the process of drawing them, how the dragons emerged from the tangle of unclear lines, how you had to concentrate so hard to move from one area to another to eventually discover how the whole fitted together. How really you wanted to throw your book on the floor in frustration and disgust, and it was an exercise in self-control and meditativeness to persevere long enough to get a result. But I was very pleased with the result, like I'd excavated the pattern and understood something new about it from the process of drawing.

And next to those dragons was another panel. We were wiped out and there was no way B and I were going to start round two. But this weekend I've had a go, though admittedly not in person. Instead I used a photo I took at the time, plus one from the South West volume of the Corpus of Anglo Saxon Stone Sculpture (an expensive tome, so see your kindly local librarian), and one on the Megalithic Portal. I've also only just found these clear photos (one below) which make me think I've imagined some elements. So it's always got to be better to see such things in person, especially with something as confusing as the above. It helps that you can assume the knotwork always goes under-over-under-over, but ultimately it's better to scrutinise these ancient worn carvings with your own eyes.

from 'The Arts in Early England'

It probably makes sense that the two blocks do come from the same bit of sculpture - there's the same hatching in both, and the same type of small knots. There surely must be a dragon's head on the top left of this one? And could that be a pair of legs crossing in front and behind of its neck? Who knows. Is that another animal's head on the right? There could be a third body crossing from left to right, judging by the hatching. And another interesting thing is the loop just right of centre top - is it a single ring on its own? If so, that reminds me of one accompanying one of the snakey creatures at Ramsbury.  The design's certainly not as coherent as the other Colerne block. But with the two arcing creatures and the mirrored knots, there's certainly something symmetrical going on. Interesting. What a shame that more hasn't survived.

Image © Rhiannon 2015

Kencot, Oxfordshire (II)

B and I visited Kencot on August bank holiday last year. It's got a mad tympanum, so that absorbed our drawing energy. But there were also interesting Norman things inside. One of them being this font. Guy Thornton has a photo of it here with some flowers in.

It's very neatly and evenly carved, and I remember that this did make me question its age. But I think when you look at the design, it's got that typical repetitive pattern that makes its Norman origin pretty believable.

It sounds a bit odd, but what it reminds me of most, is my beloved cast concrete Brutalist buildings. Something like this - with straightforward geometric design, and the character of the decoration deriving directly from the nature of the material. On the photo of the font you may notice that extra texture is derived from (what I think are) fossil shells embedded in the stone. I like that, it breaks up the geometrical design in an interesting and random way. I also really like the way the carver has produced three different tones from the way the carving interacts with the light - dark, medium and light.

It also looks remarkably like a salad spinner or a zoetrope. But neither of those things had been invented in Norman times either. I'd initially dismissed it as less interesting for its flatness. But actually I think it's a grower.

Image © Rhiannon 2015

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

Castle Eaton, Wiltshire - dragons (II)

Castle Eaton was another of our visits at the end of a day's wandering last year. And again I didn't have the energy left to draw the dragons. This is a not-very-clear photo of the doorway, but it's to illustrate the accompanying single arch of chevrons and its outer border of blobs.

 

And now not-very-clear photos of the dragons, left and right. There's hints of the rounded flaring snouts of those at Bishopstone? And maybe of the bulging eyes too. The eyes are rather swept round and swept back - like they're combined with ears! I guess dragons need good all-round hearing and vision. The teeth are different to others we've seen: just one row, not the sharp interlocking up and down versions.

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Bishopstone (Swindon), Wiltshire

I knew we'd seen more dragons on doors than I've posted, so I looked back through my photos and found some at St Mary's church at Bishopstone. It was the same day as the stupendous Hinton Parva font and the wealth of carving at Ramsbury. Any other day you'd be pleased as Punch to find this doorway. But B and I were exhausted by this point, beyond the help of crisps and buns. What a daft hobby.

There are chevrons at two different angles, with a carved decorated border for them, and also an arch of good fat blobs. The tops of those neat skinny columns are rather nice too although they're worn. Here's the left hand dragon:

It's an interestingly exaggerated style, with the flaring snout. And what's going on with that bulbous head? Or is it four-eyed? Or are those high up ears? I wish I'd looked closer while we were there. The teeth are as fearsome as ever though.

Above the door there's a fairly inscrutable face. I seem to remember there were some Norman faces inside the church too, but I've no photos.

The font (which you can see on Mark Goodge's British Listed Buildings site) is also supposed to be Norman - it looks a bit neat for me but the proportions are pleasing. So many interesting things to see, and yet I didn't really See them. Proof that one should go home before getting into such a state! It's an exhausting business, hilarious really.


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Hankerton, Wiltshire

Drawn image copyright Rhiannon 2015

Spring seems to have arrived at last, and so feeling Springy it felt time to get out around the county again. Although B and I rarely saw a soul on our travels last year, everywhere was very busy. A friendly churchgoer chatted to me as we walked along the path to the porch where the dragon doorstops are. He did kindly invite me in for the church's coffee morning. But I didn't feel it would be polite to join the people chatting inside when they were there for a different reason. It did feel rather rude not to, when I was gratuitously enjoying their dragons. But I wanted to spend time drawing not chatting. Such is the dilemma of the heathen artist.

He pointed out to me that similar dragons can be seen at Malmesbury. And in fact B and I have seen them elsewhere too, like Leonard Stanley and Elkstone. And I have to say it, the ones there are actually better. The pair at Hankerton seemed a little bit half-hearted in comparison. Maybe they're weatherworn - maybe that porch hasn't always been there, maybe the carvings have lost some depth. Even so, I'm not sure they're as detailed as the LS / Elkstone ones, nor as exuberant.

The drawing above is of the right hand dragon, and the photo below of the left hand. The lines are simple and the (short) ears and eyes are not decorated. But the teeth are done quite deeply and carefully. They could probably take your finger off should the dragon came to life.

For those that like gargoyles there were lots around the tower, and they looked large and excellent. But far too modern for me :) I was intrigued by the thing below though, which was in the churchyard. Has it got the look of a font base or a stoup? Surely too huge for a column base. And is it resting on the lid of a table tomb? I don't know. It was curious though.

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Charlton (Malmesbury), Wiltshire

This is not the best picture of the font at Charlton. I was rather hoping to be able to sit and draw it. But I felt too embarrassed to stay and start in front of the many bell ringers doing their practising. The top doesn't match the bottom - imagine how lovely it would be with a simple base, not that incongruous (and hideous) angular thing. Its 'pellets' are familiar from other fonts B and I have seen. And the 'rope moulding' is maybe even a rather retro Anglo-Saxon design? It's a brilliant, simple, beautifully wonky font. I like it a lot.

Fuzzy image copyright Rhiannon 2015

Potterne, Wiltshire

This is the amazing tub font at Potterne, near Devizes in Wiltshire, which we visited last August. It's very plain and solid, but unusually is inscribed around the top with part of a psalm:

Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum, ita desiderat anima mea ad te Dominus*. Amen

(As the hart yearns for springs of water, so longs my soul for thee, Lord.)

 

Or, as the King James Bible puts it, 'As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God'. But much as I love the language in the KJB, 'panteth' is just a bit too silly sounding in the 21st century.

* I'm not sure if it says Deus or Dominus, as I'm ashamed to say that I did not study it closely enough. Unusually, B and I didn't even draw it. The Psalterium Romanum, via which the font has been dated to the 10th century or even earlier, uses 'Deus', but this book on fonts says Potterne has 'Dominus'. Tenth century though - that's crazily early. It always gives me a special kick to find these things which were made before that date of 1066 which looms so large in the English psyche.

I'd like to go back and copy the lettering - I don't see it reproduced elsewhere on the internet, other than in indistinct photos. It'd be nice to be able to compare it with other examples. There can't be many.

The font was actually refound in Victorian times - it was discovered under the floor of the nave during the restoration of the church in 1872. What on earth was that about? Presumably when it was buried within the church, it was still held to be important? But why not keep it for its original use? And when was it buried, how long was it buried for? So many questions. And the current font is 100% dull to me. Why would you swap for such a thing.

Images © Rhiannon 2014/15

Monkton Farleigh, Wiltshire

The capitals either side of the door at Monkton Farleigh are Norman. The left one has quite flat trumpet scallops (or that's how they look to me), with some overlapping upside-down arches along the top. The right has a creature's face on top of the column. It might be my current obsession with the curious phenomenon of Anomalous Big Cats, but I wonder if it has a feline look. Maybe it's only the little diamond in the centre that reminds me of a cat's tongue. It may well be a tongue - we've seen lots of faces sticking their tongues out. But it certainly doesn't have cat's teeth, they're square and not half as toothy as the ones at Twerton. No, it's probably not a cat at all. It's got lovely repetitive arches over the eyes. And it's quite strange but I do like it. It has an ancient air, an ancient expression. There's an old photo of the whole doorway at Bath In Time.

Images © Rhiannon 2014

More thoughts on fonts and on visiting them.

I've been reading 'Mawming and Mooning' by Bob Trubshaw, which is free to download from the  Heart of Albion website. He bemoans 'explanationism' of medieval church carvings - simplistic explanations. But here's one he liked:

Where the heads are in the 'four corners' [of a font] (if a round bowl can be thought to have 'corners'), as at Greetham, then for once we do have a fairly reliable idea of what they were intended to denote. They were the four rivers of Paradise. On the face of things this seems as arbitrary as the four humours or the four cardinal directions. But the rite of purification for the water to be used for baptism is based on Genesis 2:10 which refers to the four rivers of Paradise (viz. Phison, Gehon, Tigris and Euphrates). More specifically, it refers to the sources of these rivers - their headwaters. And, in the Vulgate Latin of twelfth century bibles, the word for the headwaters of a river is capita. Think of the modern word 'decapitated', from the Latin caput and the word-play (or perhaps simple misunderstanding) becomes obvious.

This reminded me of the square font at Steeple Langford, with the two faces at its corners (and probably space for two more now destroyed).

But to be honest, we've seen a lot of fonts now. And I can't think of another example at all. If faces were regularly in the corners, the theory would seem like more of a goer. It does make some sense. But to be honest, how many carvers spoke Latin and would have got the joke? I can't see the priests commissioning the work making an explanation of it. Now I've thought it through I'm not convinced at all.

It's strange, on one hand you've got the 'everything's craftily pagan' explanationism of some writers, and then the very straight-laced Record It Like This attitude of the Corpus of Romanesque sculpture. Mr Trubshaw does take a very broad view. And where do I sit? I think it just makes me want to continue in my own vein, discovering the sculptures through drawing them. I can't compete with Mr Trubshaw or the Corpus researchers.

It makes me happy just to visit these sculptures, I don't need to explain them and I'm not sure it'll ever be possible to make definitive statements on them without time travel. With work and coursework there's been a dismaying lack of visits since the end of September - until Monkton Farleigh. But I truly hope to get out and about in the Spring. The arrival of midwinter and a break from work have given me hope.