Last Saturday D and I went to the picturesque village of Adderbury in North Oxfordshire. Ever since reading The Stray Rambler's blog post on St Mary's, Adderbury, I have been keen to visit the church.
The oldest parts of the building date to the 13th century but most of the current church is 14th century. There is a wonderful array of stone carvings - gargoyles, grotesques, mythological creatures, people and medieval musicians. The church tower has a carillon which plays a different tune every day.
The church which features in "England's Thousand Best Churches" by Simon Jenkins is usually always open. Just my luck that last Saturday it was well and truly locked. I really did feel like throwing "my toys out of the pram" at one point!! A local lady I met later in the churchyard seemed to think it wasn't open because of recent thefts which is really very sad. The fact that it was closed meant I wasn't able to get a guide to the church so the information I have is limited. Luckily there are many carvings on the church exterior so it was worth the visit just to see these. Later a pub lunch, village trail and walk round the local nature reserve more than made up for a locked church!
Gargoyles
There were many old tombs and gravestones in the churchyard.
The tracery looked beautiful.
Door to an old manor house next to the church.
The south frieze with its wonderful 14th century stone carvings by the North Oxfordshire School of Carvers.
A manticore?
A man and what look like two dogs on a lead.
Dragon with an entwined tail - oh to see inside the mind of a medieval stone mason.
Gryphon?
More tracery and
ancient tombstones leaning against a wall.
I understand there may be "troll" carvings around the tower but the tower area was all cordoned off with metal due to scaffolding and work being carried out.
So we walked round to the north side of the church to see the frieze with more 14th century carvings of mythological beasts, strange creatures, humans, day to day life and medieval musicians.
First of all mythical creatures with quite a few dragons including one with two bodies.
A mermaid with two tails. I've just been going through the photos with D trying to identify mythical beasts and he mentioned the similarity between this carving and the Sheela na gig at Kilpeck although in this case it is a mermaid rather than a woman.
And an owl.
Scenes from medieval life and some of the carvings give an idea of clothes/headgear worn at the time.
I think the carving on the left is of a cyclops - D spotted this.
Man with livestock and a dog?
Medieval musicians
This carving looks like people climbing out of a coffin and two angels - D suggested it may represent The Day of Judgement??
Violets and primroses were found around the churchyard.
Many thanks again to The Stray Rambler and if you would like to visit his post which does have photos of the interior as well please see here
As you can see from his post I missed many more wonderful stone heads and corbels of ladies in wimples, knights etc. , St George and the Dragon, a stunning East Window and the Coat of Arms of William Wykeham plus misericords. I would like to return to the area as there are a couple of other churches nearby which also have some good stone carvings. It is only about an hour and a quarter away but next time I will check whether the church is open before I go!
All photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera
12 comments:
What a great church, it looks like there was more than one caver, the first gargoyle reminds me of a character on sesame street, and the others although amazing you have to wonder what was going through there minds when carving,they seem quite unique. I often wonder where the idea for the dragons came from.
A great set of photos showing them at their best, I do hope you go back to look in the church.
So nice to see the wild flowers growing in the church yard, the primroses look beautiful.
Great post..
Amanda xx
Amanda Peters - Thanks so much Amanda. You do have to wonder what it was really like in medieval times - so different from today! I found a book buried in my bookcase on mythical beasts which is proving quite handy! Although my son has always been interested so knows a lot more about them than me!
The list of churches to revisit is growing!!! It was such a lovely village it may be somewhere we could go on a family day out and I could go round the church and the rest could look round the village.
Churchyards with wild flowers always look so special in the Spring :)
Amazing carvings, if a little grotesque at times, but you've done a terrific job of photographing them.
{not sure why I am showing up as Rustic Pumpkin, but Google seems to have made changes while I have been absent}
all the stone carvings are fabulous and it is great when one reads about something and then one can go and check it out. Perhaps next time you can look at the inside.
Rustic Pumpkin - Thanks so much and welcome back :) I think Google + is disappearing in April? although blogger will carry on. There should be a message from Google about it when you go into "Design" on your blog.
Margaret Birding for Pleasure - Thanks so much. Do hope to go back to the church one day :) There are a couple of others in the area I would like to visit.
What an amazing church, the carvings are so interesting and so many of them too. Such a shame it was closed when you visited but also for the fact that it was closed due to theft! I hope you can go back when it is open, I suppose they may have volunteers to watch the church at certain times. Looking forward to part two:)
That's an awful lot of carvings and they're amazing, I like the Owl and the dragons!
Pam - Thank you. It is amazing what you can find when you look! Even getting my son slightly more interested now! :)
The carvings are wonderful. It is such a shame that you could not go inside. When churches need to be closed to stop vandalism they really need to have a key holder to see or pray within.
Our local church is closed in this way, although it is not one you would visit to see the interior. But that is not the point, churches should be accessible for people to visit.
I'm so sorry, RR, that the church was locked, but you evidently made the most of what you could see! The owl is rather sinister and reminds me a bit of Goya and his 'Sleep of Reason' images. As a lover of bagpipes, both Scottish and Northumbrian, I sometimes wonder what it would be like in the southern and middle regions of England if the use of these piped instruments hadn't (almost) died out here. What beautiful spring flowers! I wondered why the place was called Adderbury... and see the name seems to derive from Eadburg.
Caroline Gill - Thanks so much. Luckily there was a lot to see stone carving wise round the exterior :) I will research Goya and his "Sleep of Reason" images!
I thought the name Adderbury might have something to do with adders! until I read the bit about Eadburg.
HEC - Thank you for leaving comments and I do apologise that I managed to accidentally delete both - so sorry but I get so many spam comments these days and it is too easy to make a mistake.
Just to say I have know idea why there are so many carvings - church was locked so I couldn't buy a guide book :(
It would be fine to post a photo on facebook as long as it is not for profit or commercial purposes - please credit to Ragged Robin. Thank you.
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