Avebury and Winterbourne Monkton

With the pressures of modern life keeping our brains in a whirr (I have been forgetting to do the meditation you can tell), admittedly not the pressures of being down a mine a hundred years ago, but relief is still found in the soothing pleasures of a trip out fonting.  As it had been some time, (although a whole trip to Bristol needs updating on here), it was nice to get out, sit down and take up a pen. (My new pens. More on them later).

We travelled a by now familiar route out towards Devizes, through the weird hills and villages of Wiltshire.  Then further on to Avebury, home of the Stones.  It always strikes me as strange how many other people wake up and have exactly the same thought as we did, to go and visit them on that very day. (Although they had not had the same thought about visiting the font). However it wasn't heaving, and there were large enough spaces between other visitors not to feel like we were at Stonehenge or something.  As I had forgotten the tea flask we used it as an excuse to have a cream tea at the cafe, which was very nice.  Then we had a wander around the Stones, which are remarkably large, solid and smooth in places, and you have to wonder what it was all about. Even though we were walking round them in a circle, I got a bit disorientated but I enjoyed the calm feeling and seeing the sheep grazing in the middle.


Our main objective was of course to see the font in the local church, which has a fair few more visitors than your average village church. Most people just glanced at the font, if they noticed it at all, even though we were both sitting attempting to draw the detailed and swirling design on it, that is worn with time. The main features are two dragony/wyverny creatures with what I think were unusual amounts of detail, in the patterning down their sides. Very pleasing. I was drawing one with a particularly delightfully curving tail.  There was also a human figure, face bizarrely obliterated by a metallic thing, perhaps part of an old lock.  Above the figures were swirls reminiscent of several places, I shall have to look up - and below, an interlinking archways/pillars design very reminiscent of Durnford font.  I am sure with our extensive knowledge now, we should write a book making observations, as we have been able to see many links and similar designs throughout our travels that other people (the handful who also have this obsession) may not have seen.

We decided to squeeze in another font, just up the road in the next village, Winterbourne Monkton. My sister has visited both before as I remember seeing her previous drawings, but it is always nice to re-visit. And for me they were both new. We really were out in the middle of nowhere, or so it felt, and there were butterflies joining us as we had our picnic lunch.  This font was another elaborately carved and very striking design, which carried traces of paint from years ago, including blue and red. Then it seemed only too fitting that I used my new colour pens in their fancy case, which are fine-tipped. I am quite pleased with my drawing as I depicted different areas of the design in different colours. The bold zig-zag band that forms the main part had traces of blue on it. There is a human-oid figure with splayed out legs and arms, possibly other bits, or is this part of the whirly flower design that fits neatly above and below the zigzags. I think it was put there because if you imagine it removed, the zigzag design would not meet up neatly - you can imagine, can't you, the carver getting round to the end of the pattern and realising it was not really going to work out. A bit like the strikingly free-hand looping patterns at Hinton Parva.  I was not good at depicting the deep cut trumpet design below the zigzags, something my sister did with much more 3D success.

Romsey

When asked what I wanted to do for my birthday, the answer was simple. Yes, animals are always a good option but fonts (or rather, Romanesque carving) won. As a special treat we went that bit further to Romsey Abbey, near Southampton. And it really proved to be the sort of special treat you want for a special birthday, as mine was.

Before we even got inside, we were delighted to find wonderful Norman corbels high up around the outside walls. Most were of faces of people or animals and some distinctly different to those we have seen before; some faces had things inside their wide open mouths such as figures of people. There were also a number of pairs of heads. The garden outside was a lovely spot to stuff our faces so we admired the corbels as we ate.

Around the corner from the main entrance was a figure of Jesus, on his cross, not unlike the one at Langford. Over this one was a hand of God. The Jesus was next to a rather fine door, I'm not sure how much of it had been touched up as it seemed in remarkably good nick.  Then more corbels (it was a bit overwhelming) and then we finally made it to the front entrance.

Inside you are struck by the high walls and lofty ceilings of the building. It has many treasures and they are keen for you not to miss any of them, as a detailed map was given to us by an interested guide (although this was once we had been round the abbey already). We were both soon going from one thing to another, doing the usual thing of "look!" and then finding something even more exciting around the next corner. In terms of Norman carvings, the place is a real gem. Towards the back of the abbey, every column seems to be topped with a carved capital - and all seem different. You have the foliage design, reminiscent of Knook, and some more unusual ones of people and animals. The abbey had provided a drawing of some of the more complicated ones, suggesting what was being depicted, but cynical and questioning as we are, we did not take everything as gospel (despite being in a church). The only problem was that all the capitals were hard to see for two reasons: the main one being the height - it was impossible to crane your neck back and to see anything in detail with them being so high above your head. And secondly, each was lit with a bulb that shone down into your eyes so you could not see very well anyway. It was a real shame and we considered writing to the abbey to see if we could get a ladder or platform from which to view them all close up, under the guise of wanting to produce a book on them.

see how high they are

The back of the abbey is just one carved capital after another and then you come across the far right hand corner, where there is a Saxon rood. Thankfully you can have a proper look at this one. The figure of Jesus on the cross and the people around him stood out from a darker coloured backgro
und... which on closer inspection appeared to have been painted in bronze enamel paint, which had been applied quite carelessly. We almost began hyperventilating at this - clearly someone had done this in the recent history of this ancient carving. I just hope the offending paint can be removed without any damage.

Luckily there were plenty more carved capitals around the corner to distract us, including a rather cute one of animals biting each other. It is just a shame we could not draw anything because we could not see it in enough detail at that distance.  Unsurprisingly, many people going round were not looking up and so were walking past, in our opinions, the best bits.

So to fully appreciate the abbey we need to return with ladders and permission to shin up them, although even then I don't think I'd be able to draw at such heady heights. But even without drawing it was the perfect place for a birthday.

Who did this!?