Wednesday 8 April 2015

Limpley Stoke, Wiltshire


This is not, I appreciate, the world's most accomplished photo. But it shows you something of the amazing narrow and tall Saxon doorway in Limpley Stoke's church. We visited it in August last year. It's got a presence, it's like a portal to another time. I admit it... I closed my eyes and walked through it. (Nothing out of the ordinary happened, I regret to say).

Apparently the church was first dedicated to the Saxon Saint Edith who lived at Wilton, just outside Salisbury, not so far away.

The inner shape of the doorway is reminiscent of the amazing glazed one at Somerford Keynes (but you can't step in and out of that one as you please). The jambs have strange holes and little triangular carvings with crosses:


Finally, another fairly poor photo to illustrate the pleasingly simple design that decorates the "impost blocks" (get me with my terminology) - that is, those distinctive sticky-out bits from which the arch springs.


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