Stop and look
Sometimes I want to share something on the blog, even though I have little to say about it. Instagram can be the place for this, but because not everyone looks there, here’s one of the monuments in the church at Chew Magna that caught my eye. It’s to Sir John and Lady St Loe and dates to the mid-15th century. They’re members of the family that built the church house in my previous post, and their monument, a tomb chest topped by these recumbent figures, is one of several outstanding monuments in this church. It’s a reminder, if we needed one, that even in a parish church in a relatively out of the way place, there’s terrific sculpture waiting to be discovered. I’d encourage anyone with even a passing interest in these things to get out there and look for themselves
There's a certain almost grim realism about them that is Renaissance in quality, the Renaissance already being in full swing in Italy. The honesty of the person commissioning these sculptures, in accepting them, says something about the values of the age. Reading a lot of Lydgate and Capgrave, etc. recently, so "discovering" the 15th century - not just the Wars of the Roses! You often can't see the expressions when viewing effigies from the side.On the strength of some quoining appearing behind an apparently Romanesque buttress, I raise the question - is part of the nave at Chew Magna Anglo-Saxon? If so, it would be one of the relatively few pieces of A-S work in the West Country. And are you going to say anything about the magnificent Somerset tower?
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