A mishmash

Above: you might need to click on the image to read the "gypsy warning". Remnants of folktales, village lore and "stories" can be found all over the county, but for how much longer? Folk culture in the county is evanescent and ephemeral, as insubstantial as a light mist and just as likely to be blown away before it is properly recorded.

I didn't go anywhere this afternoon, mainly because I drank calvados at lunchtime and effectively passed out (luckily while sitting in an armchair). When I woke it was 5 o'clock. I think I will pour the rest of the bottle down the sink.

But the enforced idleness (when I was finally awake) gave me an opportunity to think about my "Exploring the county" posts and work out what I am trying to achieve. When I first started I intended to use Pevsner as my guide and see all the medieval structures in the county. As I went from village to village I came across hundreds of extraneous items that would simply disappear if I did not photograph and record them.

The result seems to be a mishmash of unconnected characters, anecdotes and traditions (traditions often teetering perilously on the edge of neglect and extinction).

And yet, beneath all the confused reportage I feel there is an underlying unity and value if only I can work out what it is. In many ways I am bound to go on with this "exploration". I could not stop if I wanted to.

Military clues are scattered throughout the tableau

Official warnings to keep off the roads because of the severe weather conditions, but so ingrained is my habit of going out on Sunday afternoons that I decided to risk it and drove thirty miles to one of the central villages.

The church was founded in the 7th century by the Mercian king Wulphere. A few Saxon fragments remain, but the building is mostly 13th century. Some idiots have painted the entire interior (walls, box pews, even the pillars) in a modern white emulsion paint that makes the place look hideous - how can this happen in a Grade 1 building?



Above: my main interest was this brass plaque in an ashlar surround. It shows a 16th century family kneeling in a paved chamber before a plinth piled with bones. The skull and crossbones is a symbol of mortality, but also of military death or glory and membership of various secret fraternities prevalent in the county.

Military clues are scattered throughout the tableau, including the detailed armour of the eldest son, the two heraldic devices (they require more interpretation) and the significant mention in the text that the father is "armig" but not actually a knight (although the arms have helmet crests). Both parents and the eldest son are kneeling on cushions, the all the rest are kneeling on the stone floor. Note the chrysom child lying on the ground on the right (a child that died in infancy so that its christening gown was used as its shroud).

In a cultural context the eldest son's armour, and the prominence of the two coats of arms are significant. Armour obviously had a practical protective purpose, but I am intrigued by the theory that it was also used to portray the male body as acquiring a superhuman aspect. Considerable social rules surrounded medieval heraldry - who can have arms, how they assume them, and why.



Above: high up on the wall immediately over the brass plaque was this 16th century helmet. It is tempting to connect the helmet with the family in the brass engraving, but there is no evidence for this. You can see part of the gleaming emusion-covered wall.

Double-headed eagles are rare

The thaw of recent days has continued, and most of the ice and snow has gone. Going out after lunch the air felt mild although the temperature was only slightly above freezing. Drive of about thirty-five miles to the south west of the county.

The village is in a small valley prone to flooding. A shallow river winds around the parish and provides the boundary for several of the farms. The community has preserved several acres of ancient limestone grassland which in warmer weather is notable for wild flowers (pyramidal orchid, clustered bellflower, autumn gentian) and rare butterflies (chequered skipper, pearl-bordered and silver-washed fritillaries, green hairstreak).

I have tried the church door several times, but previously it had always been locked. I have read about the history of the area, and nothing remarkable has been said about the building. Therefore I was unprepared, when entering it today, for the surprises inside.



Above: below the tower parapet are these strange heads. You may need to click on the image to enlarge it. What do these heads signify, and why are there six of them?



Above: There is an outer door to the south porch and then an immense inner door. The handle of the inner door is medieval and incorporates a design of two lizards (or dragons?) and what seems to be a runic inscription. Is this meant to be a reference to a grendel-type monster?



Above: why two pulpits of such solid and ornate appearance?



Above: life-size recumbent effigies of a thirteenth-century lord and his wife. They look as if they are in bed. The arms on the shield were difficult to decipher.



Above: recumbent effigy of a fourteenth-century knight. Chain-mail armour. Angels by his head.



Above: most fantastic treasure, and completely unexpected, was this medieval altar frontal in crimson silk. It was underneath a roll blind and behind glass. The gold embroidery shows the Assumption of the Virgin surrounded by angels and double-headed eagles.



Above: double-headed eagles are rare in English heraldry so that I wondered whether the material for the frontal could have been given by Anne of Bohemia (wife of Richard II). The dates are roughly right, and Anne of Bohemia's arms include double-headed eagles. Also there was a castle seven miles away that would have been on the royal circuit and where she almost certainly stayed.

Lead plaques

Above: although there is still a lot of snow on the ground there was some bright sunshine today - flooding in through the south windows of this church in streams of golden light.



Above: at the back, on the north wall of the tower, were lead plaques with drawings of sailing ships.



Above: No indication of who created these plaques or what thy meant. On the whole I liked the sense of mystery. They were obviously antique, and examples of folk art.

Jung writes about "the power of myth and the collective unconscious, a reservoir of age-old images buried deep in the mind which are tapped in moments of genius". Apparently we all inherit these archetypal memories and they come to the forefront of the mind during the creative process. All great creativity draws upon this reserve, and all great art features some variation of these archetypal narratives.

Anyway, looking at these plaques made me think of Donovan singing Atlantis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmXElrdrJ3U

An M.R. James moment

Bitterly cold day, the temperature about three degrees below freezing. After lunch a drive to the middle of the county, the roads slippery with ice (especially the side roads). Because the landscape had a covering of white snow the light was reflected and refracted so that the afternoon stayed bright until nearly 4pm.

I arrived at the church half expecting the open day to have been cancelled, but when I pushed on the huge fourteenth-century door, black with age, it opened. And inside was a man aged about sixty wearing a brown tweed suit. In the south aisle his wife had set up a little table with urns of hot water and pots of tea - I was immediately offered a cup of tea.

The interior of the building was incredibly cold, so that it hurt my lungs when I breathed in. The man and his wife however were cheerfully impervious to the cold, and commenced an in-depth tour of the church. I suspected that I was the only visitor they had had all afternoon.



Above: my main interest in visiting the building was to see a carved head of a crusader knight that was supposedly brought from the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.



Above: the stone head itself was so unremarkable that it could be anyone. Verbal tradition links it to the crusades. We had a discussion about the topography of the area (famous for its natural springs) and demography.



Above: during the tour the elderly man took me under the tower, used as a lumber room for all sorts of unused items. Set in the wall was a Saxon stone (note the torque-like patterns - golden torques being a symbol of royalty). When the stone had been removed in 1890 a crouching body had been found behind it.

It was an M.R. James moment (and more disturbing for having seen Night Of The Demon on BBC2 last night).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hACZf6YKX3g

Armour

Above: after lunch I drove to the south west of the county. In one of the churches was this tremendous monument which seemed to be an example of the "northern renaissance" (the moment when the medieval world became modern). Debased classic pilasters, medieval heraldry, archaic inscriptions.



Above: the Steward let me go into the Sanctuary to look closer at the heraldry. Notice the double helmet above the coat of arms - this arrangement is more usually associated with German heraldry (indicating that the knight held more than one fiefdom). These sorts of "closed helms" are often associated with jousting.

A cup of tea was offered, and then a big slice of home-made raspberry jam sponge cake (the jam home-made as well). We discussed the way the rood staircase was built into the thickness of the north wall. Church finances were a problem ("It costs about four thousand a year to run, which is getting expensive, but some years we can raise up to fourteen thousand so we mustn't grumble...").



Above: at another church they had an actual knight's helmet, kept very high up on a ledge (I had to clamber up on top of a table tomb to take this picture). It was part of a full suit of armour that had been found in one of the tombs about a hundred years ago. The helmet type is known as bascinet.



Above: the various forms of knight's helmets. Wealthy knights would often have several suits of armour - fighting armour, jousting armour, showing-off armour. You had to be physically very fit to function in a complete suit of armour.

Sheep Fair

Note: I wrote this at great speed yesterday, which is why I have to keep going back and correcting errors. It also has not really conveyed my true feelings about the event. On Question Time two weeks ago Professor David Starkey said that politicians had generally stopped "venerating the Shires". This is a big mistake, as the majority of English people mentally live in the Shires (including suburbia in the classification "urban" is culturally ignorant - the whole ethos of suburbia is anti-urban). If Ed Miliband is serious about connecting with "middle England" he needs to be seen at events like this (David Cameron does this already). And give serious support to the Rare Breeds Society.



Above: this is a blog post that is a week late, and relates to my visit last Sunday to a Sheep Fair in the south east of the county. The Fair has been held annually for the past seven hundred and seventy-two years. The Fair is held in a small village on the stone belt (Jurassic limestone).



Above: on the way to the Fair I was a bit concerned about how "authentic" it would be. Many village festivals have become tourist attractions for townies trying to get in touch with their "roots". As I parked my car in a bumpy field I was reassured by the amount of mud everywhere - it seemed to be a guarantee of "authenticity".



Above: I got there about 3pm when the light was already beginning to fade (the rain clouds made the sky overcast, adding to the gloom). I looked at the various signs, wondering what I should see first. Very fine light rain (hardly noticable) was falling.



Above: I walked through the funfair which was brash and gaudy. Hundreds of children. I was reminded of Scott Fitzgerald's comment about the magical appearance of funfairs when seen from a distance at dusk.



Above: this stall selling "old fashioned fairings" did make me wonder if the event was becoming a self-conscious heritage parody of itself. But this was the only twee item I saw all afternoon. Also most of the people seemed to be locals who knew each other (perhaps I was the only outsider?).



Above: in the church hall was a demonstration of spinning. All of the spinners kept sheep. One sheep farmer (out of shot) told me "When I started I had two Norfolk Horn sheep - which was twenty per cent of the total in existence!" We talked about the Rare Breeds Trust.



Above: there was a display of wool from the different sheep. I was interested in the Jacob wool as we have several blankets at home made from Jacob wool. There were also samples of raw wool and explanations about how it is processed.



Above: I walked on to the market place where there was a big representation of a sheep on the official Fair stall surrounded by vases of flowers (this picture was taken from the back of the stall). Sheep have always been important to the economy of the south east of the county. Seeing this arrangement made me think of the golden calf set up by the Israelites on Mount Sinai.



Above: to one side of the market place the drummers were drumming. Ritual drumming has been practised since Neolithic times, and is supposed to drive out evil spirits. According to Sir James Frazer drumming was also used to initiate higher states of consciousness.



Above: a band of black-faced morris assembled. They wear costumes made from coloured ribbons with pheasant feathers in their hats. The rain had stopped by this time.



Above: as the band began to play two lines of morris dancers, holding staves, began a performance. They went on for about half an hour. I was impressed by the antiquity of this scene - such dances have probably been performed on this spot since the first Sheep Fair nearly eight hundred years ago.



Above: I walked along to the church, which was on a ridge of ground overlooking the village centre. Described by Pevsner as a Perpendicular and Decorated ensemble. The dedication is to St John the Evangelist.



Above: inside it was decorated for Harvest Festival. Every ledge and flat surface held arrangements of vegetables, fruits and autumn flowers. Improving texts accompanied the displays.



Above: the great east window had a representation of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, carrying a lamb and a shepherd's crook.



Above: on the walls of the nave, just below the clerestory, were medieval wall paintings featuring shepherds and their sheep. These paintings, discovered in 1939, are of international importance. Obviously the keeping of sheep was (and is) of great cultural significance in the locality.



Above: walking back down to the centre of the village I saw this stall selling mutton stew. I briefly considered trying some, then decided against it (I only had limited time to spare). The supermarkets are obsessed with selling lamb - there is no reason why they should not also sell mutton.



Above: as I walked back to my car I saw the sheep pens in the fields ready for the following day.



Above: later at home I reread Hardy's Sheep Fair.

"...worn to shreds underneath"

In the afternoon I drove to the south eastern corner of the county. The hills are formed out of a workable stone that comprises the chief building material of the area. The weather mild but overcast, with a constant blustery wind and showers of rain.



Above: signs of autumn everywhere, including acorns on the oak trees (the area is noted for its oaks).



Above: little roadside stalls selling autumn produce.



Above: a big field of pumpkins being harvested. Pumpkins are hardly ever used for food in the United Kingdom. Almost all this crop will be kept for the observance of All Hallows Eve (the vegetable is hollowed out and carved with a crude face that is illuminated by candles - before pumpkins were brought from the new world turnips were used).



Above: the Norman door to the church.

Stopping at one of the villages I had a walk around looking at the farm buildings. Then I went over to the church which had an interesting Norman south door. It was locked.

In the churchyard was an old man aged in his seventies, cutting the grass. I asked him if he had a key and he pointed to a corner cottage opposite where the keyholder lived. Having obtained the key (a huge heavy item, about a foot long) I returned to the church and the old man accompanied me inside, acting as a guide.

He had lived in the village for most of his life having married into the local gentry when he was about twenty. His new in-laws had not been very welcoming, and he had a sort of second-class existence for about forty years until his wife finally succeeded to what was left of the estate (all sold off by then, except for one small apartment in the old manor house). We talked about the local farming families, and then about the church. He described the recent visit of an American professor who had stayed in the building over six hours sketching, taking photographs, making measurements. We talked about his wife's family and he told me their history. I asked about the manor house and he invited me to have a look round.

The house was about half a mile away. Despite stone being the area's main building material the house was built of red brick. Three stories high, square in shape, five bays along each side.

Split into flats and sold off in the 1980s, the man and his wife had the ground floor along one side. Small entrance hall painted yellow, ornate fireplace, big alcove filled with a dinner service of hideous china (Indian tree pattern).

"Everything had to be sold" the old man said, "we went to the auction and tried to buy back different pieces but most of them were out of our price range".

Living room, rather untidy. Large grubby oil painting of Raphael's Battle of Ponte Milvio ("It's only a copy"). Huge fitted bookcase filled with eighteenth-century volumes - Whitaker's History of Richmondshire, Walter Scott's Poetical Works, Forsythe's Treatise on the culture and management of fruit trees etc.

I was introduced to his wife and we had a cup of tea. The sofas were covered in very durable green loose covers ("they're worn to shreds underneath"). We sat there for about an hour talking and drinking tea.

The last room I was shown was a narrow chamber that was sealed at one end by a false wall. Completely empty apart from two very good life-size marble statues that had formerly been garden ornaments but were too valuable to be left outside. The walls were covered with family portraits - oil paintings, sketches, photographs ("all of them are here from the past two hundred years - my parents-in-law are over there in the corner...").

Worth making the effort

Village in the northern half of the county, at the northern edge of the central hills. All the villages in this area are related culturally. Traditionally they are descended from a devastated population that took refuge in the hills during the Viking incursions, and when returning to the valley split into several communities.



Above: the church was thoroughly restored by Blomfield in 1872, but he is supposed to have faithfully reproduced the Saxon windows in the tower. From the exterior you might think this was an entirely Victorian building and drive past without taking a closer look. Especially as it is on a sharp bend and you have to turn off the road to find somewhere to park.

But it was worth making the effort - inside there was lots to see.

Two attendant ladies offered tea to all comers (served from an urn), gave out portions of home-made cake (only 10p a slice), and guided people through the exhibits.



Above: there was further evidence of Saxon settlement, including this Saxon grave marker (it would have stood upright, the right-hand part above the earth).



Above: the font is Norman and was found by Blomfield buried under the floor.



Above: there were hundreds of artefacts from various periods dug up in the surrounding fields - here you can see a 17th century candle and a medieval key and nail.



Above: There was a photographic exhibition of village history. Here you can see a farmer's wife feeding chickens. The life of a farmer's wife was physically hard but when you talk to elderly ladies about their mothers and grandmothers there is considerable affection for the old way of life.



Above: there was formerly a blacksmith in the village, now long gone. Smiths held an important position in pre-industrial society as a knowledge of iron technology was of crucial importance for the making of weapons for both hunting and defence/offence. More work needs to be done on the social relationships between blacksmiths and hunters (they were often linked in fraternities).



Above: making of corn dollies in preparation for the harvest celebrations. Many schools in the county produce these items during craft classes. In all the fields this weekend the farmers have been taking advantage of the fine weather to bring in the crops.



Above: a cornucopia - a long-standing symbol of "plenty".