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:
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| 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.
