Great Tew: Wall Paintings and a Priest's Apology

I took these photographs of the wall paintings at St Michael and All Angels, Great Tew. They belong, I understand, to one of the most important surviving groups of early 14th‑century wall paintings in Oxfordshire. They form part of a larger narrative cycle running along the south aisle wall, and the image shown here is one of the panels that fits neatly between the aisle windows. It depicts scenes from the Passion cycle.

At the right-hand end of what is effectively the lowest tier is the Appearance to Mary Magdalene — one of the clearest surviving images. Two small trees frame the scene, and Mary, on the right, kneels reverently before Christ, who holds the banner of the Resurrection.

Noli Me Tangere - Appearance to Mary Magdalene

There is a certain irony in the fact that the central image of the Resurrection has been largely lost beneath a later memorial tablet. When such monuments were installed, the existence of medieval wall paintings — often whitewashed after the Reformation or simply forgotten — was probably not suspected. And so this central and crucial image is now reduced to Christ’s foot stepping out of the tomb and a handful of tiny soldiers, one of whom, on the right, is seen leaning on his shield.

The Resurrection 

The memorial is to the Reverend Charles Dayman, M.A., who served as the Vicar of Great Tew from 1830 until his death in August 1844. His tenure spanned a transformative and highly turbulent era for both the local parish and the wider Church of England.

Before arriving in Oxfordshire, Dayman was educated at Exeter College, Oxford. He initially found clerical work as a curate at St. James’s Church in Dover, Kent, where he lived with his wife. 

He was formally instituted as the Perpetual Vicar of St Michael and all Angels in 1830. Dayman ran the parish at a time when religious nonconformity was surging in rural Oxfordshire. By 1834, just a few years into his tenure, Great Tew was reporting a massive spike in residents identifying as Baptists or "Ranters" (Primitive Methodists). 

Dayman spent much of his energy trying to retain his congregation against the draw of local cottage meetings. He took an active role in running the local school and his strict, structured educational regime was highly regarded by the regional gentry, who sent their children to Great Tew specifically to be tutored under his leadership.

Dayman’s family was profoundly impacted by the Oxford Movement.

I thought I might imagine how the Rev. Dayman might look on his own memorial today:

An Apology from the South Aisle 

Forgive me, Lord, for where my marble lies,
Blotting the ancient pigments of Your grace.
My passing breath they sought to solemnise.
With heavy hand, and blind to any trace,
The parish carved my name in polished stone,
Right where the medieval masters drew
The rising Christ, who broke the tomb alone,
To bring the dying world a life anew.
Yet here I stand, imposter before the grave,
My cold memorial blocking out the light,
A mortal man entombing Him who saves,
And hiding resurrection from our sight.
Dear Saviour, scratch away my proud decree;
Let Dayman fade, that we might look on Thee.

These survivals remind us how precarious medieval art can be. Parish churches were living buildings, altered and adapted to the needs of each generation. What remains is accidental and all the more precious for it. At Great Tew, the faint red lines still carry the energy of the original hand, working I imagine, from familiar models and with a sure sense of narrative and gesture.

For those who want to explore the cycle in more detail, an excellent and comprehensive review is available here , with fine, clear images of each section  

Ambling in Clanfield

I spent most of the day today, from early morning until lunchtime taking a wander around the village of Clanfield. I had recently discovered a campervan service, repair and conversion business tucked away at the end of the long track-like road called Mill Lane. A fascinating find. 

One might call it an industrial estate, though unlike any I have ever visited. At the end of the lane, and into the complex, I was met with the extraordinary sight of several beat-up, half-cannibalised cars, all, or mostly, of high-end branding - Mercedes, BMW and the like. And in a large covered area, a couple of Rolls Royces, including the classic 'Silver Cloud', in states of disrepair. Cars such as these were built to defy time, yet here they were, reflecting time's passing as old barns or weathered gravestones

My reason to visit was less exotically interesting - I was here to get a repair done on my campervan. The campervan business was across a small wooden bridge over the stream called Broadwell Brook, among other enterprises including upholstery, welding, guttering and the like - a busy place.

I was met by Paul, an engaging guy who filled me with every confidence that the pop-top roof repair on my van was nothing like the terminally problematic issue I had feared. After a quick check on some details, Paul gave me a 3 hour window of opportunity to take a wander back along Mill Lane to  the main village of Clanfield, whilst he did the necessary work.

I enjoyed the 20 minute walk , and sought out the church, as is my wont when coming to any village. And as always with such church visits, St. Stephen's did not disappoint - it offered, as all churches do, the unusual and unique embedded in the familiar styles and layouts of these ancient buildings. 

St. Stephen Statue, Clanfield Church

Immediately engaging was a very eye-catching large figure carved in an angled niche in a corner of the tower. This was St. Stephen, carrying a pile of stones and maybe a book. Walking up to the South door entrance, I was met by a friendly lady who introduced herself as Ros, and she immediately alerted me to a pile of plaster on the entrance floor - the result of water damage finally doing its worst. Not easy to dawdle and enjoy the Romanesque tympanum over that South door! But my chat with Ros convinced me that another visit would be a good idea...there is much to see and enjoy in St. Stephen's. 

I learned from her that she was just tidying up after a group of Zen Buddhists had enjoyed a night's sleep on the church floor - using carefully-arranged kneelers as mattresses. It seems this is not an unusual occurrence for such folk on their spiritual treks along the Thames path and environs. 

My chat with Ros led me to share some local history knowledge, and she told me about a unique character called William Tayler, who hailed from the hamlet of Grafton, close to Clanfield. He went to London and entered into service in a household in Marylebone, London in Victorian times, and kept a diary which is published as The Diary of William Tayler (1837). This journal offers a candid look at the daily routines, gossip and hardships of a 19th century servant. It offers local historians a picture of the contrasting lives of the rural working class poverty in the Clanfield and Grafton area with the structured reality of the rhythms of urban domestic service.

Ros's parting gift to me apart from a gratis copy of an old leaflet describing the highlights of the church, was the recommendation to visit Blake's Kitchen in the village, and enjoy one of their signature cinnamon buns! 

And so I wandered along to Blake's and enjoyed a coffee and bun as recommended. A fine place, with outdoor and indoor space, an on-site post office, and a friendly atmosphere. An excellent way to await the call from Paul, which duly came to let me know that the job was complete on my van. It was time to wander back along Mill Lane, check the job, grab the invoice and say my grateful goodbyes.

Blake's Cinnamon Buns

What to say about this visit? And why, really, have I narrated these details? In simple terms, I guess I might say the walk was a pilgrimage of sorts. This village, which yes, I've driven to through a few times, but which until this day I have never explored, was the birthplace of my father in August 1920. 

He was the 7th child of my grandparents, who went on to produce 3 more offspring. My grandfather was a cowman/farmworker, and by all accounts did not settle for long in each place where he found employment. By serendipity, the campervan business was here in the village, and I was glad to be drawn here for an enforced couple of hours. 

Here I was able to absorb the  contrasts and a sense of a place known by the likes of William Tayler. Here was a place which had not substantially changed in the 100 years between his time in Grafton, and the time of itinerant farmworkers in the early 20th century. And I was able to reflect on how those workers' cottages have now become desirable Cotswolds residences for folk with leisure time to enjoy coffee and genteel socialising. And how Zen Buddhists and the grandson of one such worker are blessed with the time to wander free and comfortable among the pathways his ancestors trod in a whole other world.

----------------------------------------------------------

Postscript ( June 9th 2026)

A review of the 1921 Census tells me that in that year:

Edwin ( b. Hatherop, Glos ) worked at Northcourt Farm

The Farm manager was a Mr F Bowden

His co-workers were:

•             Alfred Benfield  b. Grafton
•             George Shayler b. "Oxfordshire"
•             William Temple b. Clanfield
•             William Parrott b. Clanfield

Edwin lived at The Green in Clanfield. No house number/name is recorded.

He lived there with his wife Mary and children:

•                         Edwin Jesse b. 1910 "Oxfordshire"
•                         Pam   b. 1911 Hampton Gay
•                         Rupert b. 1913 Hampton Gay
•                         Alice b. 1914 "Oxfordshire"
•                         Percy b. 1916 Kencot
•                         Hector b. 1919 Bampton
•                         Kenneth b. 1920 Clanfield

... and the story continues.

Restored workers' cottages 2026 , The Green , Clanfield

The Green, Clanfield 2026

Northcourt Farm for Sale 2026: PDF Here (May 2026)

Hampton Gay: Small Place, Big History

Hampton Gay is one of those unusual and fascinating places where railway, canal and river all meet, to indicate every possibility of progress and prosperity. But these days, Hampton Gay is a hamlet down a simple track, a few cottages, a church, and several shapes in the ground which are all that is left of former dwellings. A major feature is the ruined 16th Century manor house, now a scheduled monument, which answers to any description such as "picturesque", "haunting", "eerie" or "evocative". 

The Manor

We took a few hours on the last day of 2019, to explore this place, walking from the nearby village of Hampton Poyle in December half-light. The idea was to visit the ruined manor, but also to pay small homage to my grandfather, who spent a couple of years with his wife and growing family, as a cowman here just before the Great War

Like many villages nationwide, Hampton Gay's population was more numerous in medieval times. Post-Black Death, the decline was almost complete by 1428 when the village was exempted from taxation because it had fewer than 10 householders. 

But there was always the mill. And the development of the wool trade. These two elements to the growth of Hampton Gay were the source of its prosperity from the 16th Century, until a series of 19th century disasters overtook the village and brought it to its current incarnation, a place of memories, but also of contemplation and a livelihood for a few families in the current, prosperous-looking households.

Economic and Social History 
Hampton Gay had a water mill on the River Cherwell by 1219, when it became the property of Osney Abbey. It was converted to a paper mill in 1681, working with the converted corn mill at Adderbury Grounds, 12 miles upstream of Hampton Gay. The mills originally produced pulp, and from this, the paper was made in batches by hand until 1812. 
Then in an upgrade, Hampton Gay mill was re-equipped to manufacture paper mechanically and continuously. Then even more development and prosperity came in 1863–73 when the paper mill was rebuilt with a gasworks, steam engine and other machinery. 

But then, a disaster: in 1875 the mill was destroyed by fire. But it was restored to production in 1876, and further to this, in 1880 it had both a water wheel powered by the river and a boiler-fed steam engine. Production rose to about a ton of paper per day. 

The Mill and the Manor
The tenants running the mill during these upgrades, were a J. and B. New. With the manor house nearby gradually going past its prime, it was divided, and the New partners became tenants of one side. However, by 1887 - coincidentally with the terrible fire which ripped through the manor in that year - the News went bankrupt and the mill and associated property were sold to settle unpaid rent. 

The Manor
The Barry family built the manor house in the 16th century. Their money came from wool, and the fortunes of the manor and its upkeep followed the pathway of the demise of the wool trade with the development of the Northern cotton mills. And so, the manor kept its Elizabethan style until the 19th century, but by 1809 it was in a state of neglect, and well past its former glory. 

And so it was, in the 1880s the house was divided, and its final demise came in that fire of 1887. The house has never been restored and remains an ivy-clad ruin. 

Enclosure and Agrarian Revolt
In the mid-16th Century, with wool still a major source of wealth, the Barry family enclosed land at Hampton Gay for sheep pasture. In 1596 Hampton Gay villagers joined those from Hampton Poyle to join a revolt against the enclosures. 

The rebels planned to murder members of the landowner family and then to march on London. But the plot was foiled, and five ringleaders were arrested and taken to London for trial, and one was sentenced to death. But the Government of the day also recognised the cause of the rebels' grievance and determined that "order should be taken about inclosures...that the poor may be able to live". Parliament duly passed an Act to revert the land enclosed since 1588 to arable. The problem of enclosed land, of course, reared its head again in the late 18th century, but by then the focus of prosperity in Hampton Gay had firmly switched to the mill. 

Rail Disaster
The Oxford and Rugby Railway, built  in 1848–49 ran between Oxford and Banbury and adjoins Hampton Gay. The nearest station at Kidlington was closed in 1964, but the railway remains open as the Cherwell Valley line.

The Shipton-on-Cherwell train crash, one of the worst accidents in British railway history, occurred near Hampton Gay on Christmas Eve 1874.  Workers at the paper mill in Hampton Gay assisted the injured, and the inquest took place at Hampton Gay manor.
Full details appear in an Oxford Mail retrospective here. 

The Church
Hampton Gay had a parish church by 1074, with restorations and additions during the 13th Century.  It was completely rebuilt in 1767–72, though the architectural style is somewhat piecemeal and unprepossessing. In the context of the current state of the village, it has its own charm and is a reminder of busier and more fortunate times.



Epilogue!

Why did I record this here? I guess only as a small homage to my Grandfather, and his time here which I first learned about, as most of us with Ag Lab forebears do, from research into family ancestry. 

Edwin Betterton at Hampton Gay 

. Here is his image, from a larger photo of his father and brothers, in the Oxford Journal Illustrated August 30th 1916.  

Edwin Betterton August 1916

Naunton Dovecote, Glos.

In another of those dull wintry days which seem to be the norm this season, we took a trip out across the Gloucestershire borders with no particular aim in mind. We saw the signpost to Naunton on the A436 past Bourton-on-the-Water and decided to take that road. And so by serendipity we chanced upon the Naunton Dovecote, a site I had not known about,  but one which repaid a visit, especially as the light lifted awhile and the sun shone on the ancient stonework to create an inviting scene to explore awhile.

A notice-board has the following guide to the past and present incarnations of this quite special place by the river.

The Naunton Dovecote is reputed to be 15th century in origin but sadly there is no documentary evidence to confirm this.  Its architectural style suggests that it was built in the early 1600s but only dendrochronology would be able to establish this with any certainty and the tests carried out to date have been inconclusive.

Whatever its age the Naunton Dovecote is an important building, being Grade 2 listed and an Ancient Monument. It is typical of the stone-built Four Gabled style of dovecote and is particularly large, having 1,175 nestholes. Inside, the bottom tier was filled in during the Second World War to prevent the chickens, which were housed there, laying their eggs in the back of the nestholes! Most dovecotes had this adaptation made when brown rats became a pest around 1750.

Nestholes

There are 903 open nestholes now form the basis of a nesthole sponsorship scheme. Donors who have made gifts to help purchase and restore the building. Additionally, friends of the Naunton Dovecote Trust have sponsored some of the nestholes inside the building.

View on arrival

Ownership of a dovecote was limited to a privileged few in earlier times: in this case to the Lord of the Manor of Naunton. The young “quabs”  were farmed as a luxury meat for the table and their by-products (known as guano) were considered the finest fertilizer known at the time.

A dovecote was also something of a status symbol for the Lord of the manor and so tended to be in a prominent position and built to the highest standards of the day.

In those days also, the pigeons feasted freely on the surrounding crops - whether or not they belong to the Lord of the Manor. This caused hardship and bad feeling among the peasant classes.

The Naunton Dovecote is unusual in that it lies in a Valley by a river and is, fortunately for the general public, visible from all around. Dovecotes were normally built on prominent ground so that the pigeons could keep an eye out for predatory hawks.

The Louvre or Lantern at the top of the building was designed to allow the Doves in and out, but not the hawks, who could not negotiate the vertical flight pattern needed to enter and leave. The Louvre of the Naunton Dovecote was redesigned when it was restored in 2001 as there were no visual images remaining of the original arrangements.

When corn became very expensive 1794 to 1918 the dovecotes fell into disuse and many of the 20,000 dovecotes originally recorded in Britain fell down or lost their original features by conversion to other uses.

Not so the Naunton dovecote which, because it lay by a river, was converted to a mill for grinding corn for animal feed. The door was moved from the east elevation facing the manor to the South a window or doorway was built in the North elevation and a 1 storey extension on the South side covering the door was built. It was dug from the river into the Western side of the mill and the large wheel was driven by the force of the water.

The most recent project, completed in July 2018, included excavating the head race where the water entered the lean-to on the Western side, and this can now be seen by visitors.

 in 1952 due to a decrease in the volume of river flow and thus pressure, the wheel was removed and the dovecote was used to house cattlemen's chickens and pigs for general agricultural purposes.

The currently ruined turbine house by the sluice was built in 1929 to supply electricity to the Manor House. One recent project included repairing the turbine house as a ruin, removing and reinstating the turbine machinery and digging out the first section of the head race exit leat from the building. Again, visitors can now see these features which lie beyond the dovecote building by the river.

Turkey: Cappaddocia – Near Goreme

 

 This spectacular landscape was relatively unknown to UK-based travellers in the early 1980s, when these pictures were taken. At the time, there were very few hotels, with tourism restricted by the extremely limited hospitality infrastructure. I was working with a company which was offering specialist art- and religious tours, attracting people who were interested particularly  in the huge underground cities in this area (esp. Derinkuyu to the south) and the many underground churches, richly decorated from as far back as the  10th  century and earlier.  There is beauty and edginess here in equal measure, as we think of whole populations disappearing underground in the event of threat.

As landscapes go, it is all breath-taking and other-worldly. These days, mass tourism has arrived ( mea minima culpa!) , and I would have to  go back knowing that the moments of wonder I experienced here in those visits is likely to be forever compromised. But I think I would be willing to give it a try.

Photos © David Betterton 1983

Image ©  https://www.goreme.com/goreme-open-air-museum.php 

Image ©  https://www.goreme.com/goreme-open-air-museum.php 

Image ©  https://www.goreme.com/goreme-open-air-museum.php 

The Church at Kilpeck: Random Observations

During a day on the Welsh borders near Hereford, I made a visit to the famous church at Kilpeck. A place I had visited before, the last time perhaps 20 years ago.

The church is dedicated to St Mary and St David – although this St David a local St David and is not the patron saint of Wales. The church at Kilpeck is quite fascinating. To my mind, this church deserves absolutely, the obvious attention it has enjoyed over time. It repays repeat visits. I do not think any similar example exists anywhere in the UK of a church with such an extraordinary mix of Celtic, Saxon and Viking art all vying for a place in the visitor's imagination.

Rooted even further into the past, there is an example of the Manticore, a mythical beast out of Persia, via India, brought to northern latitudes by the Celts over time. It is a beast with the head of a man and the body of a lion, and momentarily I wondered whether W.B.Yeats thought of the Manticore when in his poem "The Second Coming" he writes:

             somewhere in sands of the desert  

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,  

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,  

Is moving its slow thighs,

The Manticore

Some discussion of this can be found  here .

The South Door with Tympanum

The Marticore sits broodingly on the left-hand pillar of the exquisitely-framed entrance to the church, amidst a plethora of exotic iconography. These carvings derive from the Herefordshire school of sculpture, a 12th Century group of artisans, whose work is visible in several other churches nearby. Despite its overtly religious nature, Herefordshire School work also has a playful, occasionally bawdy approach.

The motifs – no less than 89 corbels - which populate the four sides of the church are a fascinating example of this art, and they have attracted debate, intrigue and deep interest over time. Here are a few samples:

Lovers or Wrestlers?

A Pig with Protruding Tongue?

Hound ( intelligent and loyal) and 
Hare (representing faith in God and not the self)

Much has been written about these images, and the official website of Kilpeck church is a mine of information and detail, with a downloadable guided tour. Full details are here  

Corbel No 28: The Sheela Na Gig

In general terms the presence of the Sheela Na Gig in church architecture attracts, one could argue, more than its fair share of comment. For me, two fragments grabbed my attention, in the set of brochures and other literature laid out for visitors. 

The first one was the reproduction of a letter from a Mary Rose O’Reilly PhD of the University of St Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. I make no further comment, but record only a recognition of a valid interpretation. After all, what do we really know? She writes:

 “a number of scholars and researching comparative iconography in (especially)  Ukrainian and Central American weaving and needlework are inclined to relate the Sheela figure to a recurrent symbol of women giving birth. (Ukrainian girls until recent years embroidered a similar figure on long draperies which were part of their trousseau – drapes which were held onto by a woman during childbirth). The figure represents, then, not fertility in the lascivious aspect, but a patroness of women seeking an open womb, an easy delivery. P.S. I add this for whatever corrective it may be to the male view that the figure has to do with women vis a vis men, whereas more likely its significance was entirely within women’s culture".

The second fragment was this, from an older brochure describing the corbels.

[A female exhibitionist  goddess (Sheela-na-gig) with huge bald head, puny diminutive body and long arms which pass behind the legs to open the grossly beautifully enlarged vulva (Fig 78) . This represents low morals. female creative power ]

Indeed, more power to that person who made these revisions, one might say.

Woollen Shrouds: A Grave Case of Closed Shop Practices



Start of the Easter Story Sequence:  South Newington

Occasionally it happens that an oddity emerges during a visit to any number of the churches I come across in my increasingly unstructured attempts to understand more about these buildings. The church of St. Peter ad. Vincula in South Newington near Banbury was and is no exception. I expected to see its marvellously-preserved wall paintings and was not disappointed. They are sometimes breath-taking in their detail, and have clearly been the subject of a great deal of care and skill to keep them as they are today.

Madonna & Child
South Newington

Martyrdom of Thomas Becket

South Newington





But what caught my eye among all this medieval ecclesiastical finery, were a set of small, framed black-and-white documents on the wall of the north aisle. These turned out to be 17th and 18thcentury certificates of "burial in shrouds made of wool". These rather macabre documents recall a period when it was a legal requirement to bury the dead in woollen shrouds, and of no other material.

Burial in Wool Affidavit: South Newington

The certificates are decorated with symbols of death and mortality, including hourglasses, skeletons, coffins, a scythe, arrow, and bodies wrapped in shrouds.

The Burial in Woollen Acts 1666-80 were Acts of the Parliament of England which required the dead, except plague victims, to be buried in pure English woollen shrouds and never any foreign textiles. The driver for this restrictive practice was the perceived and real decline of the woollen industry throughout England. For centuries the woollen trade had been important to the wealth and prosperity of the country, but with the introduction of new materials and foreign imports, the wool business was under threat.

So, the idea was to create and to protect a new market for woollen cloth. It was a requirement that an affidavit be sworn in front of a Justice of the Peace (usually by a relative of the deceased or some other credible person) confirming burial in wool, with the punishment of a £5 fee for noncompliance.  Parish registers were marked with the word affidavit or with a note 'A' or 'Aff' against the burial entries to confirm that affidavit had been sworn, or marked 'naked' for those too poor to afford the woollen shroud. 


The declarations included the words:  "No corpse of any person (except those who shall die of the plague) shall be buried in any shift, sheet, or shroud, or anything whatsoever made or mingled with flax, hemp, silk, hair, gold, or silver, or in any stuff, or thing, other than what is made of sheep’s wool only."

Failure to comply meant a fairly hefty £5 fine. Half of this money was paid to the informer. The other half was handed over to the Poor Fund of the parish where the body was buried. Within 8 days of the burial, an affidavit had to be provided declaring that the burial complied with the Act. The affidavit had to be sworn in front of a Justice of the Peace or Mayor by two worthy persons. If the parish did not have a JP or Mayor, the parson, vicar or curate could administer the oath.


This Act was obviously unpopular with many people as they wanted to buried in their finery as opposed to a cheaper garment or shroud in an off-white colour and of very thin material. And so here's a trick... Many were prepared to pay the £5, and a member of a family would become an informer so that in effect only half of the fine would be paid.


This concern at being buried in wool can be found ridiculed occasionally in literature.


"Harkee, Hussy, if you should, as I hope you won't, outlive me, take care
 I ain't buried in flannel; 'twould never become me, I'm sure.

Richard Steele: The Funeral, a play 1700.

"‘Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke!’
(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke).
 'No! let a charming chintz and Brussels lace
 Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face"
 Pope: Moral Essays, Ep. I.


Narcissa was a Mrs. Oldfield, an actress, who died 1731. Pope wrote this after reading that she was buried in "a Brussells lace head dress; a Holland shift with tucker and double ruffles of the same lace, and a pair of new kid gloves."


The Act was repealed in 1814, but was generally ignored after 1770.