Wilmcote, Warwickshire

 

Beauty of holiness

My interest provoked by hints in Pevsner that the church at Wilmcote might be eccentric or beautiful or possibly both, I crossed the road opposite Mary Arden’s Farm, walked back to the main street, and walked along the usefully named Church Road. There I found a small Gothic Revival church of c. 1840 designed by Harvey Eginton. The kind of Gothic chosen by the architect is Early English, the first phase of Gothic on these islands, sometimes chosen by early Victorians as representing the ‘purest’ form of the style with its simple lancet windows and plain but elegant deeply moulded arches.

On entering, though, it was clear that something unusual was up. This church is very highly decorated inside with wall paintings, lavishly supplied with statues of saints and of the Crucifixion, and altogether rather ornate – far from plain and simple, in fact. This was indeed one of the first churches to be built and decorated under the influence of the Tractarians, that group of clergymen and scholars (many originally based in Oxford and Cambridge), who believed that a church should be highly embellished, that the clergy should wear colourful robes, and that such ritual accompaniments as incense should be used. Worship in ‘the beauty of holiness’* was the aim, in sharp contrast to the plain style of the previous few generations. The person behind this aspect of St Andrew’s, Wilmcote was the Rev. Edward Bowes Knottesford Fortescue, a keen Tractarian who knew many of the movement’s leaders. However, it’s said that a later clergyman, the Rev. F W Doxat, may have been responsible for some parts of the decorative scheme.

The chancel glows in green and gold, its walls painted with stylised flowers and leaves. The decoration, if overwhelming, also does an excellent job of defining the chancel as the most sacred space. The nave is much darker, but when one’s eye adjusts, its possible to make out very different wall decoration: a series of paintings, mainly monochrome compositions showing saints, scenes from the life of Christ, and religious texts. Close examination reveals that these are actually done on panels that have been attached to the walls – in fact, they are on sheets of zinc, a material I don’t recall seeing used for church murals before. I’d been led to this church by the description in Pevsner’s Warwickshire volume in the Buildings of England series, and I’m indebted to the book for the information it contains. But it did not prepare me for the amazement I experienced inside. Such surprises are what keep me looking – and recording here what I find.

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* This phrase is a rewording of the verse in Acts 2:4, describing the scene at Pentecost. The King James Bible gives, ‘And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost…’. For an excellent account of this change in Victorian worship and architecture, see William Whyte, Unlocking the Church, which I reviewed here.

Ampney St Mary, Gloucestershire

Beaten tracks

Anyone who happens to glance to their right at a particular point when driving along the A417 from Cirencester to Fairford is rewarded with a glimpse of St Mary’s church, Ampney St Mary. This tiny medieval building is isolated in a field – you reach it via a path, which curves around the building from the north to the south side, where you cross a small bridge across a stream to access the churchyard. The church is actually about half a mile from the village – it’s slightly closer to Ampney St Peter, which has a church of its own. There’s always something striking about a church in the middle of a field. Why is it there, we ask, and where is the community it serves? The answer in this case seems to be that an outbreak of plague, presumably the Black Death of 1348, led to the abandonment of the church by the 15th century and the wholesale movement of the village to a hamlet called Ashbrook, which is where it remains to this day.* The building had to wait until 1907 for a restoration  (with further work in 1913–14), by which time church repairs were often a good deal more sensitive than those of the high Victorian period. Ampney St Mary was fortunate in that the architect doing the work was F. C. Eden, a man with Arts and Crafts interests indicated by his membership of the Art Workers’ Guild.§ Unlike many of his forbears, Eden did not try to “improve” the architecture of churches he restored, proceeding with a light and tasteful touch. A number of interesting medieval features therefore survive at Ampney St Mary.

In this post, I’l look at one feature in particular: the medieval wall paintings. As is so often the case with such paintings, they are fragmentary and hard for today’s visitors to interpret, but there is one survivor with more detail than most. This is an image of a man apparently sighting along something looking rather like a pole; a wheel floats above. The “pole” is probably the spoke of a wheel, making this character a wheelwright. The context seems to be an image painted as a warning to Sabbath-breakers. The ,medieval Catholic Church was insistent that Sunday was kept as a holy day. You were expected to go to church and people were generally forbidden to work. There are lots of documentary records of churchmen encouraging priests to insist that their parishioners attend church on the Sabbath. In 1213–14, Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton ordered the parish priests in his archdiocese to tell their parishioners to attend church on Sundays and not to go to markets. Other orders went out to ban people from working on Sundays. There were exceptions – farm workers looking after their animals, merchants travelling with their goods, pilgrims and others were exempt from the ban.† The Ampney image of the wheelwright at work seems to be part of a “Warning to Sabbath-breakers” painting.

A friend of mine noticed the very individual style of drawing in this painting, and asked whether medieval artists copied one another, or learned from books or manuscripts that were passed around. I replied that they would start as apprentices, as stonemasons did, and that they would first of all learn from their master (who might well be their father or another family member). They’d see his work, and the work of others, at churches on which they worked. Some might well have collected reference drawings too, and if they got the chance to visit a monastery, or even to work on a monastic church, they would take any opportunity they could to examine the illustrations in the monks’ books. For all this, no combination of heart, hand and head is the same, so a painter would evolve his own style of drawing, as this one did, as he provided a bit of social comment and moral instruction for the people of a remote Cotswold village perhaps 600 years ago.

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* Plague is a common explanation for deserted or transplanted villages, but it is by no means the only reason for tghese phenomena; a move to be nearer to good agricultural land, destruction of buildings by storms, and land enclosure are among other reasons why villages were deserted or moved.

§ Eden also designed church furniture and fittings, and stained glass hence his connection to the guild. He became a Fellow of the RIBA in 1922.

† For more examples of clerics complaining about sabbath-breaking, see Nicholas Orme’s excellent book, Going to Church in Medieval England (Yale University Press, 2021).

Wissington, Suffolk

Emerging from the mere

Almost the first thing you see when entering the church of St Mary at Wissington* is a large wall painting of a dragon, high on the north wall. It’s dated to the 14th century and may relate to an account in a chronicle of 1405 by the monk Henry de Blaneford of St Albans Abbey. Henry tells how a dragon appeared from a mere or marshy area near Bures. It was a creature with a long body and tail, a crested head, and saw-like teeth. It was said to have killed a herd of sheep near Bures and its hard skin repelled the arrows of those who gathered to try and kill it. The chronicler goes on:

The servants of Sir Richard Waldegrave who owns the land haunted by the dragon came forth to shoot it with arrows which sprang back from its ribs as if they were metal of [or?] hard stone and from the spines of its back with a jangling as if they were hitting bronze plates, and flew far away because its skin was impenetrable. Almost the whole county was summoned to slaughter it but when it saw that it was to be shot at again, it fled into the marsh, hid in the reeds and was seen no more.

Some say that the village of Wormingford near Bures may have taken its name from the dragon or worm (the latter being an old word for a serpent or dragon).† It’s certainly true that the association of the beast with the local area has not gone away. In 2012, the Jubilee year of Queen Elizabeth II, the figure of a large dragon was cut into a hillside near Bures.

The dragon in medieval Christianity is a symbol of destructive evil, particularly the evil associated with paganism. He also represents Satan. You often find the dragon represented with St George, as part of the story in which the saint kills the evil creature. St Margaret of Antioch is another saint associated with a dragon – she escaped after being swallowed by the creature. St Michael is another dragon-slaying saint. Sometimes the dragon is seen alone as a warning against evil. The position of the creature in this painting, high up and quite near the roof, made me doubt at first that he was originally accompanied by one of the dragon-slaying saints. There is no obvious evidence of a figure near the beast, and the background of the image is confused because it seems to have been painted over an early picture. Given the legend about the Bures dragon, however, the painting carries a strong local, as well as a more general Christian, resonance.

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* Also known as Wiston

† It was originally Widermund’s or Withermund’s ford, but it’s possible that the change to Wormingford may have been due, in whole or in part, to the legend of the dragon. Ronald Blythe, who lived near Wormingford, was one advocate of the derivation from the dragon – see the excellent selection of his writings, Next to Nature (2022).

Wenhaston, Suffolk

 

Thank you, rain

It’s pouring with rain today and I’m sitting indoors thinking of another rainy day long ago. In 1892, workers reconstructing the east end of Wenhaston church in Suffolk removed a whitewashed wooden panel that blocked the upper part of the chancel arch. They took the panel apart into its constituent oak planks and moved them into the churchyard ready for recycling or a bonfire. That night it rained and the whitewash on the planks began to dissolve. By the morning, parts of several painted figures were revealed.¶ 

The boards were quickly moved indoors for safety and expert restorers cleaned away the remainder of the whitewash to reveal most of a late-medieval Doom painting – the image of the Last Judgement, when the dead rise up from their graves and are sent either to heaven or to hell. This was a poplar subject in church art in the Middle Ages, and numerous Doom paintings survive, in whole or in part, usually on the wall above and around the chancel arch.* Very few panel paintings designed to fill the upper part of the arch now exist, and the one discovered with the help of restoration, good fortune and the weather at Wenhaston is the most clear and complete of these. What’s more, the rebuilt chancel arch was no longer the correct size for the painting, so it has since been displayed elsewhere in the building. It’s now in the north aisle and this position makes it one of the most visible of all medieval Doom paintings.

At the top of the painting Christ, sitting on a rainbow, presides. Facing him are two kneeling figures, the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist, the two most prominent saints who were said to intercede with God on behalf of human souls. To the right and slightly lower down are two souls of the dead rising from their graves as the Last Trumpet sounds.

The lower level of the Wenhaston Doom contains four main groups of figures, separated by blank spaces in front of which statues of the Virgin Mary, Christ crucified, and John the Evangelist once stood. The left-hand group (the least well preserved) shows figures in front of the heavenly mansions. Next comes St Peter, key in hand, with a group of souls who bore high rank on earth – their headgear reveals them to be a king, bishop, cardinal and queen. Next comes St Michael weighing souls, his work disrupted by a large devil. Finally, on the far right, devils push the souls of the damned into the monstrous mouth of hell. Beneath the imagery run verses from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, chapter 13, beginning, ‘Let every soul submit to the authority of the higher powers for there is no power but of God’.† 

The low position of the painting on the aisle wall enables visitors to see details that would have been hard to make out when it was in its original elevated position – the faces of the devils with their bent noses and boggle-eyes, their chains and flesh-hooks, the teeth of hell’s mouth, the care with which St Peter’s robe and the hats of the souls meeting him are painted, the shroud of the rising figure on the far right, and so on. It’s astonishing to be able to see all this close-to. Even though the painting fails to show terror on the faces of the damned, as we’d perhaps expect, the power of the image is still palpable. For once, back in 1892, the rain was something to be pleased about. 

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¶ Please click on the photograph to enlarge it.

* I have previous blogged about such a painting in Salisbury.

† These words seem to have been painted over an earlier, now illegible, inscription.

Worcester

Surprise, surprise!

Walking along Friar Street in Worcester, we were drawn to a timber-framed building opposite Greyfriars by a sign advertising second hand books. Greyfriars is an impressive timber-framed medieval merchant’s house on a site close to a medieval Franciscan friary and is now owned by the National Trust. Into the building opposite we went, to discover that the National Trust has installed a shop here, convenient for visitors to its property across the street.

Although on this occasion there seemed to be nothing for me in the stock of books on display, I was pleased I entered the building because of the chance to see two panels of painted wall in an upstairs room – I had no idea they were there. These roughly square patches of scrolling stems have probably faded a good deal, but they still give the lie to a common assumption – that houses a few centuries ago had rather dull interiors with just a few sticks of furniture to enliven the living space. Of course, there would have been huge variation in the quality and quantity of decoration. This is building, now number 14 Friar Street, was once part of a larger house, its other half now comprising the neighbouring number 16. It was the substantial residence of someone with some disposable income – an artisan, or merchant, perhaps.

The paintwork was discovered when the building was restored in 1956, and a proud if somewhat intrusive inscription records this fact. However, knowledge of painted decoration has built up since the 1950s and authorities now think the date is more likely to be 16th century; for another example of 16th-century wall painting (still more elaborate than this), see a post I did about a room in Ledbury, here. Apparently, the Worcester building was home in the early part of that century to one John Watters, ‘paynter’, and may have been built for him in c. 1526. The owner’s trade opens up the interesting possibility that he may have done the decoration himself. Back then it would have been admired but hardly exceptional. He’d probably be surprised to know how much it is cherished now. 

Hardham, Sussex

Ribs, bellies, pointing fingers…

Andrew Graham-Dixon, in a recent talk I heard, engaged enthusiastically with English medieval art. He pointed out that 99 per cent of it has been lost, as a result mainly of the various depredations of the Reformation. But he quickly encouraged his listeners to look at the quality of what’s left. His energetic praise for astonishing remnants of large-scale medieval woodcarving (the Abergavenny Jesse, the Cullompton golgotha, both staggering) was infectious. I hope it made people want to make immediate pilgrimages to Gwent and Devon. And the wall-paintings, faded and defaced, are still there in their faint and sometimes barely distinguishable scores. They make one strain to make out details, and marvel.

There’s a marvellous group of churches in Sussex in which frescoes survive in surprising quantity. Occasional details emerge from them to give us an idea of their quality too. One of the best is the small church at Hardham, near Pulborough. I’d been meaning to go there for years, and was glad I visited a few days ago. It’s surprising, if you’ve not read about it, to come across this tiny church in which both spaces, nave and chancel, are full of wall-to-wall frescoes, and that these paintings date from around 1100. They’re very faded, but some of the subjects – a Flight into Egypt, an Annunciation – are not hard to identify.

One of the very best is the temptation of Adam and Eve, not least because the two main figures are bounded by strong outlines, enabling their graphic impact to hit us in the eyeballs. Ribs, bellies, pointing fingers, and Eve’s hand with which she is taking the apple, are all beautifully clear. Only the area around Adam’s groin has been defaced – the Puritans, no doubt, were here. Satan, a fat, coiled serpent, is less clear at the tail end, but has wings (well delineated) and passes the apple from his mouth to Eve’s hand. She points to the apple with her other hand, as if to encourage Adam.

It’s easy to become so carried away with some details that one misses others, some of which are very surprising. Above the painting of the Annunciation and the Visitation in the nave, for example, is an inscription in Latin, a hexameter, and in Lombardic capitals too: ‘VIRGO SALUTATUR STERILIS FECUNDA PROBATUR’ (The virgin is greeted; the infertile woman is shown to be fruitful’*). It’s wrong to think of medieval wall paintings as the unsophisticated products of an illiterate culture. Few medieval people could read and write, but some could, priests (generally) could do so, and would have explained to others what the words meant – as they would also have explained the stories behind the pictures,† whose quality need not astound us – though their preservation is a cause for wonder.

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* I think. I have very little Latin and less Greek.

† It’s generally thought that sermonizing was not a major part of early medieval religion and the notion of their being ‘the Bible of the poor’ is, I think, only one aspect of wall paintings’ significance and use. But explanation, reflection, and literacy for some provided the key to meanings at which many, for all their literacy, have to struggle to understand today.

Salisbury, Wiltshire

 

Doomsday, 2

The painting of the Last Judgement in the church of St Thomas, Salisbury, is the largest of medieval ‘doom’ paintings and one of the clearest. It is, one could say, the rich cousin of the faded doom at Oddington that featured in my previous post. Details of costume suggest that it dates to the last quarter of the 15th century. Like nearly every English medieval church wall painting it was covered with whitewash some time after the Reformation, rediscovered (when traces of colour were noticed during cleaning) in the Victorian period, and restored. It doesn’t seem to be known for sure how much of the rich detail in the painting survives from the 15th century and how much was added by the Victorian restorers, but the overall effect is impressive – indeed, overwhelming – and when a visit is possible, I’ll be able to see has changed since the most recent restoration a couple of years ago and whether the process of conservation has yielded any more information about what the Victorian restorers did or didn’t add.

Meanwhile, even in my photographs, it’s a feast for the eyes. Christ sits at the centre, on a rainbow, with his feet resting on another rainbow. Beside him stand angels holding the instruments of the Passion (cross, crown of thorns, pillar, spear, sponge), and nearby are the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist. Beneath the lower rainbow stand the 12 apostles. To the left, angels blow their trumpets to waken the dead, who climb from their tombs, some naked, some in shrouds, one with a hat on, another with a bishop’s mitre. Angels guide these righteous souls towards Heaven, the architecture of which awaiting in the background. To the right, devils chain up a group of souls and drag them towards Hell. Hell, as is common in such paintings, has the fearsome mouth of a monster, in which flames are licking the souls who have already been pushed inside.

Even if some of the detail may be attributable to 19th century restorers, this doom painting takes one back to the 15th century with a jolt. It’s a colourful scene (medieval churches were colourful of course), it teems with figures, it’s at home with symbolism, both the symbols of the Passion and the symbolic headgear of some of the participants – mitres and royal crowns are visible among both Heaven-bound and Hell-destined souls. This painting lacks the faded atmosphere of Oddington, but repays lengthy scrutiny in its details – where both God and the devil reside.

St Thomas, Salisbury, Heaven

St Thomas, Salisbury, Hell

Oddington, Gloucestershire

Doomsday, 1

Medieval wall paintings are among the most fascinating and tantalizing works of art. The fascination comes often not from the quality of the drawing but from the fact that virtually every English example is damaged, faded, and fragmentary. This is a result of iconoclasm in the 16th and 17th centuries, when images in churches were destroyed, often by covering with whitewash. Nearly every English church wall painting has been recovered from beneath at least one coat of whitewash, and the art’s condition depends on the damage done by this overpainting and the skill of the restorer or conservator, as well as the effects of time, damp, and modifications to the building.

Even so, medieval wall paintings can be extremely powerful. Visiting St Nicholas’ church, Oddington – which entails a trip down a long lane to a spot far away from houses and wonderfully quiet – makes one unprepared for the surprise on opening the south door. The enormous 15th-century doom painting stretches over virtually the entire north wall of the church.

The doom or last judgement is the event that takes place when, at the end of time, the souls of the dead are allotted their final place in Heaven or Hell. The events are complex and doom paintings are crowded with figures. As the light in Oddington church isn’t ideal for photography, I’ll describe what I think is going on in this one.§ At the top sits the figure of Christ (slightly to the right of the centre in my picture), with his feet above a disc, symbolising the earth. On his left and right sides are disciples. On either side of the world-disc are angels, and they are probably blowing trumpets to waken the dead and announce that the last judgment will take place: it’s possible to discern a narrow pale line coming from the mouth of the right-hand angel: the tube of a trumpet, I think. Next to the left-hand trumpeting angel stands a figure with a crown: St Peter. Groups of the righteous and repentant are welcomed to heaven by more angels, clearly recognisable by their spread and feathery wings. Heaven itself is, of course, architectural – there’s a slender tower with crenellations on top, linked by a wall (with more crenellations) to what is probably another tower on the far left. The celestial city had a wall, naturally, as any medieval city would do. One of my favourite touches is the small angel on top of the tower, who seems to be helping a soul into Heaven (or is it a bad soul trying to get into the city without authorisation and being pushed away?). On the right is Hell.* Yellow flames are discernible towards the bottom right. A horned devil fans the fire with a bellows. Other devils, dressed in striped garb, round up sinners and get on with the business of torturing them. Further touches: a person hanging from a gallows and another figure kneeling as if begging for mercy. Gruesome stuff, but it would have looked even more dreadful when the paint was new.

The fact that the colour has faded and so much of it has gone is perhaps what makes these paintings so moving. We can only look at them at all thanks to the lucky accidents of discovery and conservation, and their distressed state seems to lengthen the distance between our time and the painter’s. If medieval worshippers trembled with awe at the fate of the lost souls, we are more likely to be awed by the connection this art helps us make with their distant world. We don’t travel back in time or indulge in some ‘virtual medieval experience’ when we look at these paintings. We’re forced to confront another harsh reality: the power of passing time.

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§ Clicking on the image to enlarge it may make it easier to see the details. 

* The whole lower part of the painting has two different background colours. The right-hand half has a red background: this is hell; the left-hand section has a grey-looking background which maybe was once blue: it’s the heavenly realm.

Hailes, Gloucestershire

Well connected 

Hailes is a tiny, remote place I’ve featured here several times before. It gets my attention often because it’s close to where I live, indeed the church was one of the last I visited before the current lockdown. It’s one of those with medieval wall paintings, images that have faded and that put the modern viewer in a combined state of fascination and puzzlement. The paintings in the chancel – the detail in my photograph is a tiny fragment of three walls full of fragments and fading wholes – must have been very lavish. Large areas beneath and between the windows are covered with square and diamond grids contain heraldic symbols. If nowadays it seems odd that such a small and isolated place should display so much aristocratic symbolism, it’s because in the 13th century the church acquired a new neighbour, the large Cistercian abbey of Hailes, founded by Earl Richard of Cornwall (King of the Romans* and younger son of King John of England) to house a relic said to be the blood of Christ, which was to attract pilgrims from far and wide. The little church by the abbey appears to have become of the gate chapel of the larger foundation. The decoration in the church reflects this rise in the building’s status. 

The heraldic devices on a display include a large pride of lions rampant (visible here) and the occasional spread eagle: both are devices used by Earl Richard. Most of the other heraldry is said to belong to Richard’s wives – he had three, two of whom predeceased him. In the upper areas of the walls, above the windows, are scenes that are difficult to decipher possibly portraying the death of the Virgin, plus saints and Apostles. Another feature of these upper areas are grotesque and mythical beasts, such as the pair in my photograph. On the left is a dragon-like creature: its reptilian wing has faded but is still there in outline. On the right is another winged beast with a rather canine head. I’m really not sure what these creatures are doing here. There are plenty of explanations for images in this vein in sacred spaces – they’re survivors of pagan religion, they’re apotropaic images, meant to keep out evil spirits (often placed at ‘vulnerable’ points like doors or, as here, windows). But we can’t be sure, and scholars like Professor Paul Binski, who has been studying medieval imagery for years, advised in a recent lecture† that one should beware of overthinking them. Images like this, he argues, could just as likely be bits of fun, like the marginalia in Medieval psalters. And that is precisely what the Hailes images resemble.  

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* This medieval title means, in modern terms, king of Germany. 

† In a recent lecture for the Churches Conservation Trust in their excellent series of online talks; most can be found on YouTube at the time of writing.

South Newington, Oxfordshire

Christmas already

So it’s Christmas already. Since the last one I’ve written a book, Phantom Architecture (see right-hand column), done various editorial odd jobs, grubbed around several bits of England, visited the Czech Republic again, and posted about one hundred times on this blog. That’s (nearly!) enough from me for this year, then. So here’s an almost seasonal Madonna and Child, one of the wall paintings in the church of St Peter ad Vincula, South Newington, Oxfordshire.

Beneath an ornate cusped and crocketed 14th-century painted ogee arch, the Christ-Child reaches towards his mother with one hand while the other holds an apple. There’s just enough left of the painting to give one a sense of the artist’s strong line, his expressive but bony way with hands and fingers, his careful approach to drapery, his love of curvaceous ornament (both architectural and foliate), and what were probably his strong colours. The fragmentary nature of what’s left makes it, as so often with medieval English wall paintings, more moving not less.

I offer the image to my readers, with very best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.

Kinnersley, Herefordshire

Painter and decorator

The Victorian architect G F Bodley had close links to the Herefordshire village of Kinnersley. His wife's family came from the village and Bodley is also buried in the churchyard here. The church (originally built in around 1300) was restored by Thomas Nicholson in 1867–69, and a couple of years later Bodley designed painted decoration for the chancel and nave. So this modest country church has a a scheme of decoration by one of the foremost (some would say the foremost) church architect of the time. There is a richly painted chancel ceiling with flowers, sun motifs, and inscriptions of the 'IHS' monogram and 'Alleluia'. The nave walls above the arcade are also painted and both parts of the church are emblazoned with quotations from St Thomas Aquinas and the Book of Common Prayer.

The painted decoration that Bodley designed was executed by the rector, the Rev Frederick Andrews, who must have been highly competent – an unusual, but by no means unique, collaboration between architect and rector. Andrews seems to have tried out the colours on a pillar near the west end of the nave (below) – the greens and reds are especially in evidence in the wall paintings in my photograph at the beginning of this post; the blues were used in combination with these colours in the chancel and on the chancel arch. These small marks are a tangible reminder of the presence of the person who applied the paint – someone we often overlook in our admiration of the architect. Both of them deserve due credit.

Stoke Orchard, Gloucestershire

Slow fade

Several times I’ve visited the small church of Stoke Orchard, not far from Cheltenham. The main reason that Stoke Orchard is famous is because of its medieval wall paintings. They are doubly rare, first in that they survive at all and second because they depict a series of stories about St James of Compostela, an unusual saint to to celebrated on such a scale in an English parish church.

These paintings are well known among experts, and even have a mention in one of my favourite short novels, J L Carr’s A Month in the Country. In the book* the narrator Tom Birkin, a restorer of wall paintings who has just returned home from the trenches of World War I, has arrived in the fictional village of Oxgodby to uncover a wall painting in the parish church: ‘I willed it to be something good, really splendid, really astonishing. Like Stoke Orchard or Chalgrove.¶ Something to wring a mention from The Times and a detailed account (with pictures) in the Illustrated London News.’

Tom Birkin indeed finds something good. But what would a real Birkin think if he visited Stoke Orchard today? He’d probably be saddened that the paintings had faded so much, but at least his knowledge of their iconography would enable him to work out what they depict. If I tell you that the fragments in the image above are some of the clearest that remain, you will get the picture. Or not.

Fortunately the Birkin role of explicator is taken at Stoke Orchard by a series of panels with explanations and old images that are somewhat clearer than the real thing. They reveal that the section above, which you'll have to click on to have chance of seeing much at all, depicts part of the ‘Hermogenes episode’ of James’s story. Hermogenes was an evil magician whom St James converted to Christianity. In one part of the story, Hermogenes asks for the saint’s help in overcoming demons, and the magician is given James’s staff to help him. This image shows Philetus (left), an associate of the magician whom James has also converted, handing Hermogenes the staff.

English medieval church wall paintings are nearly always faint and hard to make out, having been whitewashed over during the iconoclasm of the 17th century, to be uncovered† by dedicated Birkin-figures in the 19th or 20th. Many look as if they are at the end of a long uneven cinematic slow fade and their faded state is sad. Unlike some vigorous medieval stone carvings§ that look as if they could have been done yesterday, they actually look their age, and more. But repeated visits, frequent changes of viewing position, and steady scrutiny make looking at them rewarding and worthwhile and moving too.

Notes
* A Month in the Country is widely available as a Penguin Modern Classic.
¶ In Oxfordshire, another church with outstanding paintings.
† Pevsner’s Buildings of England Volume, Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and the Forest of Dean says that the Stoke Orchard paintings were ‘mostly uncovered in 1952–56 by Clive Rouse”, making it anachronistic of J L Carr to make his hero mention them in 1918, but A Month in the Country is a novel, after all.
§ Some medieval carvings have of course been recarved by later restorers, confusing this neat picture.

Broughton, Buckinghamshire

St George: martyr, knight, protector

In about 1410 the walls of St Lawrence's church, Broughton were decorated with a very striking series of wall paintings. Rather less that 140 years later these paintings were whitewashed over as part of the iconoclasm associated with the English Reformation. They lay beneath the whitewash until the building was restored in 1849, when they were rediscovered, the whitewash was removed, and some of the images were retouched. What was revealed, and what is there now includes: a painting of the Doom showing St Michael weighing souls, the walls of the Heavenly City and the mouth of Hell; a Pietà surrounded by figures thought to represent a warning to swearers; portraits of Saints Helena and a Bishop-Saint, probably Eligius; and this painting of St George slaying the dragon.

The upper part of St George's body has not survived (this was a casualty of a roof replacement), but the remaining part of the painting, above the South door of the church, is still remarkable. The horse, especially its head, and the saint's plate armour are carefully drawn, with a strong line. The dragon is even more amazing, with its ribbed wing, curling tail ending in a small head, and its main head, striped, toothed, and with pointed ears. Behind this exotic beast, the small figure of the princess (in late-medieval costume, with lamb) is rather insignificant, but no doubt she had more presence when he original detail was visible.

Broughton, dragon, detail

Although, as is well known, St George did not come from England, he has long been associated with the country, as well as with knightly virtues and a propensity to protect those in need. He was a popular saint, and a prayer by the poet Lydgate (who was alive when this painting was done) puts him in a list of ten martyr-saints, also including Christopher and Catherine, who had the power to assist devotees in the attainment of their everyday wants and needs. Perhaps it's appropriate that the worshipper in this church saw, on entering, the rather frightening Doom painting, with its fearsome hell-mouth, but, on leaving, saw above the door the protective figure of St George, who would stand by them as they went out again into the world.
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St Lawrence, Broughton, is one the churches in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. I have blogged before about the Trust's work. They deserve our support.

South Leigh, Oxfordshire

Seeing double

St James the Great, South Leigh has some of my favourite medieval wall paintings – although some of these paintings are probably not quite as medieval as they seem. One of the most striking is this wonderful St Michael Weighing Souls. The archangel stands with his scales next to the Virgin Mary, who, with the aid of her rosary, pushes the scale pan to ensure that the soul receives a favourable weighing; to the right, devils, including one with a flesh hook (a medieval kitchen utensil) try to push the scales the other way. Through prayer, the image seems to say, Our Lady will intercede on our behalf, the flesh-hook-wielding devils will be defeated, and all will be well. Both the Virgin and St Michael are drawn with flair: Mary is calm and graceful, her robes falling in generous folds; the Archangel has wonderful feathered limbs and an enormous sword that a mere human would need two hands to brandish.

Look more closely, and the painting reveals another secret. A horizontal band runs past the shoulders of the Virgin and St Michael and turns vertically downwards, forming part of the frame of an earlier painting; between the two saints is the faint image of another, much smaller, figure – seemingly another portrait of the Virgin. She forms part of an earlier depiction of the same scene, at a smaller scale. So we have a large image of the Soul-Weighing, together with part of a smaller depiction of the same subject, together with the upper and right-hand parts of its frame. At some point, someone repainted the image, hoping to do it more justice by giving it more room.

When was the image repainted? For a long time the large version we see today was accepted as 15th-century, with the smaller version dated as maybe 14th-century. But more recent accounts, including that in the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire and another in an article by John Edwards in Oxoniensa, suggest that it’s the work of Victorian restorers Burlisson and Grylls, working in the 1870s. The church’s original medieval paintings, having been whitewashed over in the 17th century, were rediscovered during the 1870s restoration and partly repainted, and the Soul-Weighing picture seems to have been increased in size in the process. Burlisson and Grylls obliterated the earlier, smaller soul-weighing and its ghostly frame, but this was rediscovered in a subsequent restoration in 1933. So now we have a double image to confuse us.

I suppose the scholars are right: it’s a Victorian image, although its palette, the fading areas, the costumes, and details from scales to flesh-hook certainly have a late-medieval feel. What does feel completely Victorian, though is the border. This must have been painted by someone who knew about William Morris. And Burlisson and Grylls, who started out as stained-glass artists, were certainly disciples of Morris at the beginning of their careers. Burlisson, Grylls, their employer the vicar Gerard Moultrie (Tractarian, hymnologist, educationalist), the restorers of 1933, the various artists who influenced them all, and the anonymous medieval painter who started the whole process going: English parish churches were made by many hands and the marks made by those hands are many, varied, and fascinating.

Duntisbourne Rouse, Gloucestershire

On the green hill

It's not far from the A417 (formerly the Roman Ermin Street) that roars its way between Gloucester and Cirencester, but you could be in another world. You drive along a remote lane past dry-stone walls and sloping sheep pastures. Here and there a still narrower lane branches off to a farm or a couple of houses, but there is little hint of a community that might support a church, indeed little hint of a church, if you miss the discreet sign and gateway. But for those who see the sign and stop, there’s something very special. A path of grass, the quietest of approaches, leads down to the church, and as you gasp at the tiny tower, you realise that the land slopes steeply away towards one of the streams that cuts its way into the limestone hereabouts. You make a sharp right turn after the second gate at the end of the grass path, and take in the way this little building clings to the slope.


The walls have fragments of herringbone masonry – the angled arrangement of stones favoured by the Saxons – suggesting that this building was put up before the Norman conquest. The minute round-headed window in the chancel may well be Saxon, whereas the two slightly larger, taller lancets to the right of the porch were cut into the existing wall in the 13th century. The Saxon builders took advantage of the slope to build a tiny barrel-vaulted crypt beneath the chancel, and a later generation, probably in the 12th century, decorated the walls of that chancel with a simple pattern resembling masonry blocks, semicircular arches, and stylized flowers.


The porch and tiny tower are later though. The tower actually bears an inscription telling us that it was built in 1587 by a mason called John Haden. It’s unusual for a church of this date to bear the name of its mason, and this is a far cry from the grander architect-designed “signed” buildings of later centuries. Part of the satisfaction of this place, indeed, comes form its very modesty and simplicity. And continuity. The idea that people have been coming hear for maybe 900 years to worship on the slope of the green hill, or to contemplate the cutting of stone and the passing of time.

Clayton, Sussex

Wonders within

It’s a small church up a lane not far from Lewes, and from the outside, it’s charming but unassuming. A few gothic windows, a wooden bellcote, a low porch. This is the kind of exterior that makes one expect rustic charm inside rather than great architecture. None of which prepares one for the wonders within. Because inside, although the architecture itself is indeed very plain, there is a stunning set of very early wall paintings. Their exact date is unknown, but the best guess is around 1100, which is probably also the date of the semicircular chancel arch.


The clearest painting, above this arch, shows Christ in Majesty, apparently flanked by apostles and angels. The painting immediately to the left of the arch, beneath the band of ornament and above the niche, depicts Christ handing the keys of heaven to St Peter; that in the corresponding position to the right of the arch, much more fragmentary, is said to show Christ giving the Book of the Law to St Paul. The left-hand wall shows part of the Last Judgement, with the souls of the good being led to heaven; there is also a painting of a hexagonal arcaded structure thought to be the City of God. The right-hand wall (not visible in my photograph) continues the last judgement theme and includes what is thought to be souls of the damned being led by a devil riding a beast.

These paintings are much less bright and distinct than they would have been when first painted, and they are fragmentary and often difficult to interpret. But it is remarkable that they have survived at all – survived, that is, some 900 years, during which time they were covered in whitewash in the 17th century, to be rediscovered by restorers in the 1890s. The frescoes of Clayton are a wonderful reminder that the churches of the Middle Ages were buildings full of art and imagery, alive with spirits and angels, vibrant with colour and light.

Ledbury, Herefordshire

Colours of history

Long ago in another life I was an editor of illustrated books and many was the discussion I had with my colleagues about the merits and otherwise of the various artists who worked as illustrators. I remember one occasion when we were discussing illustrators of historical subjects and the work of a particular artist came up in the conversation, someone who was known for artwork that was both historically accurate and highly atmospheric – but in which the atmosphere was often pervaded with clouds or stormy weather. ‘Ah,’ said a colleague. ‘It was always raining in the ancient world.’

Even in these days of colour reproduction and the electric glow of the internet, it’s all too easy to think of history before the Renaissance as taking place in a palette of greys under a cloudy sky. Most medieval churches no longer have their wall paintings and stained glass; castles have lost their banners and heraldry; we talk about black-and-white houses and silvery stone; we imagine peasants grubbing around in dingy hovels. This view of the Middle Ages is way off target, of course, as I've noticed before.

We know more about the colour and comfort of the Tudor period, from the surviving great houses. The grandest Elizabethan rooms were heated with big fireplaces and walls hung with thick tapestries. But how were smaller buildings decorated? What options were open to you if you couldn’t afford rich tapestries? A look inside most small Elizabethan houses today and the chances are you’ll find a very simple colour scheme – pale plasterwork and perhaps, if the building is timber-framed, the same ‘black and white’ effect as on the exterior.

But it wasn’t always like this. In Ledbury is the rare survival of a 16th-century colour painted interior. Here the walls were decorated in a pattern that imitates the designs of contemporary tapestries – stylized flowers and fruit within intricate borders resembling the formal hedges of an Elizabethan knot garden. Their splashes of red, blue and gold must have glowed 500 years ago.


In addition there are panels bearing inscriptions, quotations from the Books of Psalms and Proverbs, instructing us how to live our lives. ‘Better is a dinner with greene hearbes where love is, then a fat oxe and hatred therewith.'* According to some sources, the presence of these sententious moral comments may relate to the fact that this building might once have been used as a local court – probably a court of ‘pie-powder’, dealing with the running of the town’s market and related matters. I'm not so sure: the sentiments seem more domestic to me.

Whatever their origins, these rare painted walls give us a precious insight into the way provincial buildings could be decorated in the 16th century. At least some people aspired to the kind of colour more readily accessible to the upper classes. And the setting of history was not always black, white, or grey.

*Proverbs 15.17, Geneva Bible. Thanks to the readers who identified the translation.

Shorthampton, Oxfordshire

Survivors

When it comes to parish churches, small is often both beautiful and interesting. Small churches in isolated locations sometimes survive with ancient features intact better than churches in towns and villages on the beaten track, where wealth, piety, and fashion often led to frequent restorations and renovations. Shorthampton in western Oxfordshire, set on a quiet lane not far from Charlbury, is a mixture of Norman, Gothic, and Georgian. But its main interest, apart from the quiet churchyard view views across undulating hills and farmland, lies in its wall paintings.

Because so many images in English churches were destroyed in the 17th century, English wall paintings are mostly fragmentary. What were once entire cycles of images, showing, say, the story of the Passion, are now reduced to a few scraps; a large Last Judgement may be recognisable only by a small group of devils; a feathered wing may be all that’s left of an angelic host. As a result, what survives has a quality of serendipity, and often, divorced form its context, of surprise. At Shorthampton we are treated to a dragon’s wing (presumably all that is left of a painting of St George), a Last Judgement so faded as to be virtually indecipherable, and images showing a bishop (above) and of various saints, not all identifiable but remarkably including St Zita, patron of domestic servants and a far from common subject.


And then there is this unusual subject, the Miracle of the Clay Birds. This is the story of how the infant Jesus modelled some birds out of clay and then brought them to life. If it’s unfamiliar, that’s because the story is told in one of the apocryphal gospels, that of St Thomas. At Shorthampton, although the painting is faded, the Virgin, the infant Jesus, and another child – perhaps John the Baptist – are clearly visible, along with one of the birds.

It is indeed surprising that in this tiny, isolated church, up a lane with just a few farms for company, this obscure story should be portrayed. But miracles fascinated the medieval artists, and miraculous episodes from apocryphal narratives by James, Thomas and the ‘pseudo-Matthew’ (all gospels that satisfied an understandable craving for information about the infancy of Jesus) appear in various churches. No doubt many such images have been lost. It’s a small miracle in itself that in this Oxfordshire church such a painting has survived.

Slapton, Northamptonshire

Christ's strongman

England’s medieval parish churches were originally decorated with wall paintings, collections of images depicting Bible stories, the lives of the saints, and other Christian subjects. Church interiors once glowed with colour as a result, but because of the iconoclasm that followed the English Reformation, most of these paintings were destroyed – commonly by overpainting with whitewash. Some have been restored, but whitewash, the removal of whitewash, and other wear and tear mean that most medieval English church wall paintings are at best fragmentary and faded.

Some of the best are in the church of St Botolph’s, Slapton, Northamptonshire. The subjects, painted in the 14th and 15th centuries, include the Annunciation, the Resurrection, St Michael weighing souls, and St Francis receiving the stigmata. But the best survival is a large painting of St Christopher, one of the most popular subjects of the medieval wall painters.

St Christopher is on the north wall of nave. This is the usual position for a painting of St Christopher – perhaps because he was the patron saint of travellers and his image was designed to be the first thing travellers would see as they entered through the south door opposite.

The image refers to a popular medieval story about the saint. He was said to have been a tall, strong man, who declared that he would serve only a person of supreme power. First he went into the service of a king, but the king was not supremely powerful because he feared Satan. So then Christopher became the servant of Satan, but Satan turned out to be fearful of the cross. So Christopher resolved to serve Christ, and a hermit told him that one way he could do this and use his strength was to help the weak cross a river. One of those he helped was a child who grew heavier and heavier as Christopher carried him. The child revealed that he was Jesus Christ and that he was carrying the weight of the world.

In the Slapton painting, the marks that delineate the saint’s face and the folds of his garment show the economical draftsmanship at work here; the red and earth colours give a hint at how bright the painting would originally have been. The saint’s staff is turning into a living tree, a miracle that happened when Christopher had been baptized by Christ. The teeming life of the river is represented by a handful of rather perky fish and, in the bottom left-hand corner, a small mermaid who, holding a mirror, is there as an embodiment of pride. The saint turns away from her and looks towards the traveller entering the church, and his gaze is as direct as it was 600 years ago.