Kilpeck

It is no surprise that we have long wanted to make a pilgrimage to Kilpeck to see the cornucopia of delights there; so as a Christmas present to ourselves, we made a small detour en route home for Christmas, to the famous village.

It was one of those bright winter days where the sun is low and the light is golden. With my finger glued to the map as we headed towards our destination, I remarked that the light would be perfect for picking out the carvings. As we were musing on this, I pointed out a sudden pocket of low-lying mist, hanging in a valley over to the left. "By the way, where is it we're going?" my sister asked. "Over there," I replied, pointing at the mist. It was too strange. And rather disappointing! We had no hope of seeing anything if the wonders of Kilpeck were shrouded in fog. As we crept forward through the blanket of white, we got to a crossroads. "Where do you think it is?" my sister asked. All of a sudden, the outline of a church tower rose out of the mist straight ahead of us. It couldn't have been more like a film. Was it the mystic creatures of Kilpeck keeping themselves hidden?

Kilpeck has so much to enjoy - and is so well preserved. The stone looks red and softer than some, but the carvings are in excellent condition, both inside and out. We went inside first - there are very unsual carvings on each side of the arch, three figures each side. The entrance into the church is amazing. A whole host of wonderfully comic beakheads, some most unusual, flanked by another arch of eyes and designs very like those in Stottesdon. The columns either side of the door are also very well preserved, all of it seems like it could have been carved last century. They are not like any I remember, but have a complicated design of interlacing foliage, figures and creatures.

The corbels are amazing. They go all around the church, not a space is left - although a couple are missing. The creatures are most amusing and full of character, who could fail to love them. The hare and hound pairing looks so modern.
 Rams, pigs, horses, people.  The back of the church looks out across the graveyard and across a field. A large tree was rising out of the mist that hung low over the fields. It all looked quite mysterious.

Others came to visit, one over-confident man striding around with his girlfriend, lecturing her in a boring manner and saying "there's nothing interesting inside". Hopefully she would make up her own mind.

The mist began to clear and the sun lit up the corbels in gold. As we got ready to leave, a few beams of golden light shone through the yews in shafts.