Tales from the abbey part 3.

 The last of my summer's abbey visits and this time it was Sherborne which is built out of the most fabulous honey coloured sandstone. As ever I have mainly snapped the details which caught my eye as we wandered around with any additional information included where appropriate.

There are hundreds of years between these two stained glass windows, but each are stunning. Am loving those medieval hats....wonder what they'd make of our fascinators or the bucket hat😂

Small inclusions like the rings on this lady's fingers give us an insight into the fashions of the time and how those who could afford it were wearing their jewellery.

The carving of this cranberry glass rederos is next level. It was done by Laurence Whistler in 1968 and it bears a second look because the engraving is incredible. Those angel wings💗

People often quip that nothing is new. Flooding has been around since the time of Noah [allegedly] and this report gives a full account of one such incident in 1709. There's a goodly crop of long ss in there.

Misericords are always fascinating for the spectrum of material they record. I feel blessed to have seen examples showing everyday life, folklore and religious scenes, but the first one has me foxed. There is little doubt about the second one...it looks like one of the young monks has stepped out of line and boy is that cudgel going to hurt!!

Looking at this you might imagine that you are looking at a bone skull. It is actually carved from sycamore by Martin Turner, but the abbey is famous for housing two sets of bones....

These skeletons are believed to be the remains of King Ethelbald and King Ethelbert. They were the older brothers of Alfred the Great. I do feel that Alfred's family have been following me around this year as I have encountered his jewel in Oxford, his son and daughter in Romsey, his grandson in Malmesbury and himself in Winchester. Only this week have I found that we have a local connection to him because his father Ethelwulf died and was buried in the original wooden Saxon church in Steyning in 858AD.His body was later transferred to Winchester. The whereabouts of father and son are no longer known. Funny old world isn't it.

There are no more plans to visit any abbeys, but plans can change....

Arilx

Eggcellant

I have had the recent pleasure of walking up on the South Downs with my friend Siobhan.and her gorgeous staffie Buster. I always say it, but it's true that I always see something new and unexpected. This is this walk's little gem.

Arilx

The Artists' Garden

If you find yourself using the Temple underground station and with a bit of free time do check out the roof. Upon it is the only sculpture garden exclusively featuring work by women artists. It isn't chock-a-block with pieces, but I enjoyed what was on display and it's free.

In my experience London never disappoints. I love stumbling across the unexpected as much as seeing what I have planned on my visits up into town. Hope you have a cracking weekend.

Arilx

 

It's not just an illusion

My love affair with the work of Maurits Cornelis Escher started with this beautiful picture of the hands drawing one another when I saw a copy of it hanging on my parents' friend's wall as a child. It gave me an enduring fascination with the art of optical illusion of which this artist was the maestro. Some of his incredibly detailed pieces are achieved by means of linocut or woodblock... just deciding what needed to be removed to achieve his desired outcome just blows my mind. He was the master of tessellation and had an incredible understanding of how persepective works. Let's be honest...this is the man whose work seems to prove that water could run uphill for goodness sake! The beauty of going to an exhibition showing his work is that you come away with a far greater understanding of the breadth and skill [even though this is someone else's choice of what you see] of a person's work. I am so pleased that my friend, Lovely Grey, suggested that we go and I hope that this selection of photos gives an idea of just how ridiculously talented Escher was.

Arilx

A quiet day

Some people would be disappointed to find that they have a free weekend....so long as it's not too often (I like balance) I relish it. I've caught up on domestic trivia, painted, got some sewing done and without any guilt planted my rump.in the chair for an evening of athletics viewing. As we were in need of some exercise yesterday and it was due to be a more manageable temperature, I suggested that we repeat a walk very local to us. It turns out that we've done a couple of sections on previous occasions, but that much of the route was new to us. Another gentle and most enjoyable quiet adventure.

Autumn is beginning to put her shoulder to the seasonal door and let summer slip through before she makes her grand entrance. The fields are golden, the hedges are laden and the harvesto is in.

If you walk through the countryside here you are virtually guaranteed to see stables, a stud and sheep (we also got alpacas) and quite probably old shepherd huts which are seeing a second life as overnight lets. This place had several including one that is awaiting restoration. Everywhere farms are needing to find ways to diversify to make ends meet. The stile was referred to as a TV one where the T is the bit you can lift to let your hound through. I've seen a pinch stile before, but not with.this particular combination.

The farmers round here are very good at recycling what they've got lying around. Even I didn't take a photo of the old sewer pipe used as a gate weight, but this other example utilises.a load of old sash window weights for the same purpose. The line of locally made bricks (the former Southwater brickworks site is now a nature reserve) gives you a bit of welcome hardstanding in what would be a muddy morass in the winter months and the former WWII tank trap is one of a series which have been upended and are now marking the edge of the verge. Someone has been busy putting their black sticky tape to good use on their homemade sign too.

One can never be sure what one will find when one crosses the threshold into the woods, but they don't usually disappoint. There was the usual clutter of mysterious old bits of farm machinery rusting away, but we did stumble across the perfect sized chair for a hobbit as ably demonstrated by my husband! I am that woman who often finds treasure and is to be found with random feathers etc in her pockets. This time the nature gods gifted me a large empty snail shell. When I got home I realised how beautiful it actually is.

What was intended to be an ordinary sort of walk became a rich and varied wandering.

Arilx

 

Making stuff

 

With the curved ball we were thrown last year my head has been elsewhere, but slowly my crafting mojo has started to creep back. I've wanted an Oak King and a Holly.King (they duel every solstice and the winner depends on the time of year), but I haven't seen anything I like. Instead I am making my own. Progress is a bit start and stop as I work how to do the next step. It's way off from being finished, but am happy with it thus far. I've spent years not trying to do things because I don't think it will be good enough, but that's daft because you don't need anyone else's approval do you if it's only for yourself.  Hope you have a good weekend.

Arilx

 

Off the Devil's Road

The A29 is one of the major arteries running through West Sussex. For a time it was locally known as the Devil's Road because it was believed that only the devil himself could have built something that straight. The rather more dull reason behind all this conjecture is that it is part of the Roman Stane Street. Where you have Roman roads you will have Roman goodies off it. Near to us we have a scheduled Roman mansio site which is the equivalent of our modern motorway services and towards Chichester is the grand palace at Fishbourne https://gnatbottomedtowers.blogspot.com/search?q=fishbourne.

Closer to home is the substantial villa at Bignor. We went to a fascinating talk about Roman villas earlier in the year and the speaker reminded us that we were long overdue a visit. If you're going to be a local tourist as well as a traveller to other parts then you need to put your money where your mouth is and on a pleasantly warm Sunday last month we did just that. Although there were visitors, it wasn't hectic and we thoroughly enjoyed our coffee followed by a gentle wander round this hidden site nestled at the foot of the South Downs.

Back in 1811 George Tupper's plough struck something hard and when he went back to investigate he soon realised that he had literally hit upon something important. Calling in the local bigwig, John Hawkins. this gentleman set about excavating it, but thankfully with foresight as buildings were put up over the discoveries to protect them which remain standing today. The Romans were very astute and chose their site well for it was constructed in close proximity to an older Iron Age farmsted. Our ancestors knew to head for where there was fertile soil and clean water if they were to survive. Amazingly today the villa remains in the care of the same Tupper family and it has been run as a tourist attraction since 1814. The model below shows the villa in its later reincarnation, but it saw many rebuilds and extensions over the centuries.

There are some cabinets with finds on display like this 4th century brooch of a priestess with a staff and tambourine in hand and this glass unguentarium which held perfume or other liquids along with the usual selection of pottery sherds and tiles. Within the last 30 years or so there have also been the remains of two infants found both nearby yet no adults as yet. It was a Roman burial practice to not place these little souls in the main burial ground which would have been elsewhere. There must be adults here, but their location as yet is still unknown.

The thing people come to see here though is the well preserved mosaics. From my reading I understand that they were used to decorate the floor in lieu of carpets and the coloured tesserae were made of local stone. The whites come from chalk, blue/grey Purbeck marble and sandstone provided the oranges, yellows and brick red. Sometimes glass blocks were incorporated to give a different effect. Below we have the tale of the shepherd boy Ganymede who was swept up by an eagle and taken to be the cupbearer of the Gods, cupids depicted in various gladiator guises, Venus and that rather sombre looking lady with the branch is Winter and the only remaining figure of what would have been an homage to all four seasons. Even the decor in the cafe is inspired by these works of art.

If you squint just above the dolphin you can see some initials and these are the maker's marks. I wonder if the same hand made all of them? The Medusa is the most famous one and the only one I could remember from a previous visit . As for the one on the end...neither of us can resist a chance to be silly and dress up. Life is short😁

I really enjoyed our trip over and my inner geek is delighted to announce that I have subsequently come across a book all about the A29 in our library which has been added to the reading pile!

Arilx