We have made at least 3 visits over the last month or so. In fact, see, I am already forgetting because I have been slack and not blogged them. And then you tend to forget where you've been. So I thought I would blog today's and squeeze in previous visits in another post.
Today, which could have been called "Weird Wednesday", we set off to some of the villages that are in the middle of Salisbury Plain. It is such a weird landscape, and a sky heavy with promised rain did not help. We could hear the unsettling boom of the guns on Salisbury Plain before we even set off, which was rather disturbing. The whole area is strange, because of the rather enclosing hills and also the strange military villages that are near Stonehenge.
A few of the places we saw today we didn't draw much of, or didn't stay too long, as a couple were not what we were looking for. We have now become quite expert on Norman sculpture - well I think its proper name is Romanesque. We are now able to recognise whether something is of the right period from its appearance - often this is obvious because of signs of age, rather than something new looking. But the give-away is really to do with how it was carved. Norman carvings (particularly for fonts) tend to be uneven, not uniform and generally wonky. This is their appeal. There is a real spirit and connection with the human who carved them, in comparison to a dull, soulless piece which is perfectly symmetrical, from later years. Are we fussy? No, but we know what we are looking for and we know what we like.
So today the real gem was a couple of carved column tops outside at Netheravon. They were opposite sides of the door of a really high tower - most unusual - and to accompanying booms outside (guns) and inside (someone practising the organ, Jeremy, apparently) - we set about drawing. Quadrapeds, as my sister calls them, are one of our favourite - these looked like bears to me. But you can never tell. We spotted their typical long claws (a regular feature) and a tail looped under a leg, coming over the animal's back. So somehow or other there were shared features among carvers. I suppose carvers would have gone to see others' carvings and of course they have carved many churches each - so a common style develops. Or is this how all animals were depicted at the time? It is interesting to consider. One creature was completely worn but the other had a jaunty face that I managed to make look demonic in my attempt at drawing him. Talking of creatures, I was especially lucky when I went round the church for a little nose around. Catching sight of an animal behind a gravestone, I thought someone's dog had got into the graveyard. But coming round the side I came face to face with two deer - we were all surprised to see each other. There was an adult and a baby, both quite big and orangey in colour - who turned and leapt over the fence at top speed. Except then I saw the baby hadn't managed to get over, so I left in the hope its mother would return and help.
Today's trip took in six places in all - Shrewton, Netheravon, Fittleton, Figheldean, Durrington, and Orcheston, until the rain started coming down and became quite dull. There was also a horrible ten minutes where we got stuck in the middle of a small village where traffic had been diverted, a bus squashed the side of someone's car in front of our very eyes, and too many big lorries squeezed past us. All with a funeral just finishing in Shrewton. It wasn't very nice. Specially with the guns so loud they shook the church we'd been in.
We learned about the Fittleton disaster of 1976 from a chance remark in a visitors' book, and all about the church at Figheldean from a man working outside. We had gone to visit the 13C knights in the porch, which, he told us, had been discovered buried nearby - perhaps to keep them safe from Cromwell. Not as detailed as the amazing knight at Castle Combe, but quite chunky.
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| The pleasingly simple but unusually wide font at Fittleton |
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