Round Towers and Scratch Dials

Round-towered churches are, of course a feature in many Norfolk villages. Having time on my hands on a crisp February day in 2014 I decided it was high time to take a look at another one. I had heard of a small and ancient church not far away and settled on a plan to see it.

St. Margaret's Church, Worthing

The Church of St. Margaret in the Norfolk village of Worthing, just off the road from Holt to Dereham, is associated with the Elmham group of churches. The group is part of the Sparham Deanery in the Diocese of Norfolk. This is an ancient building of great charm, standing in peaceful solitude. It is some distance south west of the village, which has moved steadily away over the centuries. In summer St. Margaret’s must be easy to miss, situated as it is behind the roadside hedgerow. On a cold winter day, the simple outline of the church emerges into view from the road past the village through the leafless trees ahead. A short drive on a track to the left reveals the churchyard gate.


The round tower of St. Margaret’s is barely as high as the nave to which it is attached. It was not always like this. The tower belfry has disappeared, following a collapse lost to memory. But it is substantial for all that, and gives the whole building a unique “feel”. Old as the tower is, built in the Middle Saxon period 900-1000 AD,  the nave is older still. In the quiet isolation there is a sense that this structure has absorbed the secrets of time. There is another sense also, that in deference to this absorbed wisdom, the village itself has moved away to make respectful space for a holiness of silence.

The South Porch - Norman Archway

The south porch reveals reminders of busier and more prosperous times. There is a fine Norman arch with zig-zag moulding which represents a major devotional investment in a modest building which otherwise reflects the humble location it was built to serve. But also, to the left of the door, are the familiar markings of a medieval scratch dial – of the type which proliferate and survive in so many churches. These sun dials were of a specific purpose, before the arrival of mechanical clocks.

Scratchdial - South Porch

A scratch dial ( also known as a mass-dial), is usually in a circular shape, carved into the exterior church wall and used to tell the time of church services. At the centre of the dial is a hole where a small peg ( a “style” or “gnomon”) was inserted to act as a simple sundial marker. Usually they have only three or four radiating sections, rather than a full 360 degree of lines, as it was only necessary to tell the time (or more specifically, the hour) of services, so extra lines were unnecessary.


At St. Margaret’s, the dial is well worn and ragged, but unmistakably bears witness to the diurnal round of worship: active, measured and regular.

The East Wall

But there is more. It starts with the fact that the east wall of the church has no window. It seems that the chancel which would have incorporated a window has long since disappeared, replaced by an expanse of flint supported by recycled stone, and some interesting brickwork which identifies these works as happening within the past couple of centuries. Amongst this re-organised rubble is another scratch dial, this one at head-height in one of the stones. It is better preserved than the south porch example. But here, of course, its presence reflects its redundancy in the centuries of the mechanical clock. But the recycled stone on which it is embedded continues to be useful.

A time for every purpose.

This article is reproduced in the magazine of the Round Tower Churches Society  in their March 2018 edition. A PDF of the magazine can be downloaded here.

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Sundial at Wolvercote: “Redeem the Time”
A few weeks after this visit, I was wandering in Wolvercote village near Oxford, and took this picture of the sundial at St Peter’s church.

This is a modern example of an old tradition. As I understand it, the motto “Redeem the Time” ( c.f. Ephesians 5: 15-21; and T S Eliot “Ash Wednesday“) appears scratched between two ancient mass-dial examples in the tower. Here in this far more visible incarnation those same words are incorporated to follow the tradition of mottoes on sundials. Tradition and circular time in two February days.

Der Lesender Klosterschüler

This wooden sculpture is by Ernst Barlach (1870-1938), the German expressionist sculptor, printmaker and writer. I came across it in 1969 in the novel by Alfred Andersch “Sansibar oder der Letzte Grund” (Zanzibar or the Last Reason), and it made a deep impression on me.  I only saw the actual carvings by Barlach much later in Nuremberg in 2003: these were exciting to see, but the photo in the text book remained iconic in my mind.

The figure, made in 1930 is now in the town of  Güstrow, in Northern Germany,  where Barlach lived until his death in October 1938.   Though a supporter of the German cause in the First World War, Barlach grew to despise the futility of war and developed a pacifist position at odds with the rise of Nazism in the 1920s. His sculptures were seen as degenerate art, but Barlach did not passively accept the destruction of his sculptures, but protested the injustice, and continued to produce.


From 1933 Barlach’s sculptures were removed from churches and public spaces. In 1936 and 1937 the persecution grew more intense:  Barlach’s galleries were closed, public art collections removed and sculptures torn down. Even his collections of drawings were not allowed to appear in book form. This was tantamount to a complete ban on working and without doubt contributed to Barlach’s early death in 1938.

Sansibar oder der Letzte Grund

In the novel, the Reading Monk has a central role as a trigger of consciousness and is a starting-point for the external action. “Sansibar oder der Letzte Grund” is about moral choices in a tale of escape, pursuit, persecution, crises of faith and political disenchantment. The statue, which must be smuggled out of Nazi Germany as an act of defiance, is a focus for the inner dialogue or practical desires of each of the five protagonists in the tale.

Among those characters is  Knudsen the rough-and-ready fisherman to whom the task falls to take the figure to Sweden. He is touched by the figure as “a strange creature from wood in the dark”. The Boy, his helper and the seeker of the “Last Reason” to leave his home, is captivated by the aura of the character.

Helander the priest the sculpture embodies an age-old spirituality that is timeless, in stark contrast to the indifference of the populace to the rise of a godless and inhuman regime. To save the figure will be an act of defiance and a show of his faith. Not least, a show of faith to himself, which is sorely tried by the absence of God and His failure to act against the totalitarian state.
For Judith, the monk is one who can read all he wants, and is free to read anywhere. As a Jew in flight from Germany, this is emblematic of her bid to escape from a place where reading is done only in a background of fear and entrapment.

Gregor, the Communist Party official tasked with the safe removal of the figure to Sweden, is the character most in thrall to the Reading Monk.  He recalls his time at the Lenin Academy when the reading was intense, but all about getting lost in the uncritical acceptance of words echoing party ideology. Gregor can see that this monk is very different. He is not lost. He reads easily, attentively and closely. But he also one who is able to close the book, stand up and turn his attention elsewhere, and do something entirely different and of his own choosing.

Gregor’s reaction echoed my own in those days. But for me the emphasis was different. This Reading Monk was enjoying an engagement in study and a peace in spirit. There would be a time to walk away, to have new experiences.  But whatever these were, there would always be this place of serenity awaiting.

Images of the Lesender Klosterschler and Barlach

Barlach website:  http://www.ernst-barlach-gesellschaft.de/

Violins in the Modern Era

Popular music in the 20s and 30s, especially dance music, had the violin as an essential ingredient. At least 2 or 3 violins could be heard in a typical dance orchestra. Society bands would often include as many as 6 or 7. But in the mid 1930s, the Swing sound had arrived in the US, and soon all stringed instruments including the violin became surplus to needs. Since the 1960s, of course, the guitar and bass guitar has reigned supreme in pop and rock music. But the merging of folk with rock sounds in the late 1960s and early 1970s,meant that once again the sound of violin strings became part of the mix. Since then and over time in the 1970s, the arrival of disco also meant the inclusion of strings in the overall sound. But with advent of synthesiser in the 1980s, the violin lost its way for a time, whilst emulated string sounds reigned supreme.

But now the violin has made its comeback, and is being increasingly part of a new wave of mainstream pop. Independent artists such as Final Fantasy (aka Owen Pallett - example here) and Andrew Bird have developed a focused style, creating a subcategory of indie rock called “violindie”.

A favourite for me: Andrew Bird and “Danse Caribe on the album Break it Yourself 

Hawk Roosting

Today at Benjamins Cottage, I saw a sparrowhawk through the conservatory and managed to get a picture from our upstairs window.  Though in a tame garden environment, the bird recalled to mind the poem by Ted Hughes from wilder scenes.

It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

In our post-enlightenment western civilisation we have indeed tried to hold creation in our grasp. The poem demonstrates  that this must be seen, in the end, as a thoroughly misguided pride. In the process, the civilised values of human life that give it significance have been forgotten. Man in our times is driven by mad impulses and obsessions.

Still, my hawk looked benign, though a little preoccupied.

Hawk Roosting

Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998)

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.

Inaction, no falsifying dream

Between my hooked head and hooked feet:

Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!

The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray

Are of advantage to me;

And the earth's face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.

It took the whole of Creation

To produce my foot, my each feather:

Now I hold Creation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -

I kill where I please because it is all mine.

There is no sophistry in my body:

My manners are tearing off heads -

The allotment of death.

For the one path of my flight is direct

Through the bones of the living.

No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.

Nothing has changed since I began.

My eye has permitted no change.

I am going to keep things like this. 

_____________________________
Published 1960

On the Difficulty of Identifying Clouds

First published April 22nd 2012

I have just come in from taking a few pictures of the sky, after a short and sudden hailstorm. Recently, I have been discussing with a friend, the names and identities of clouds. The spring season is on us, April is delivering the anticipated showery days, and the time seems propitious to nail down some of this esoteric wisdom.

Here is a view looking north from our house.

Cumulonimbus - or possibly Cumulostratus

And here is the opposing southerly view, a few minutes later

Cumulus threatening to be Cumulonimbus

I am reminded once again of how tricky it is to pin down these esoteric names. I have studied the guide ( here it is from the Met Office), and have looked at similar photos of clouds on their website: but I still find it a puzzle to commit between Cumulus, and the lower-level Cumulonimbus. And getting the distinction between Cumulonimbus and Cumulostratus is also a challenge.

In my “northerly” view above, I think I’d  go for Cumulostratus, given that there are no distinctive white cotton-wool edges anywhere … or are there just a few hints of them in there?

In my “southerly” view, we see only the top half of some very fluffy Cumulus – but behind the trees, wno knows what Nimbus awaits?

The philosoper Heraclitus of Ephesus (540-480 BC) teaches that all things are in flux or change. This for him was the case, in spite of what empirical evidence might indicate at times. Nothing is permanent, but everything is constantly becoming something else or going out of existence.
It doesn’t rain much in Ephesus, but I think he must have seen a few clouds in his time.

Met Office guide to cloud types and pronunciations

Source: metoffice.gov.uk

The Grave of Vivien Eliot

Vivien Eliot Headstone : Reads “In Loving Memory of
Vivien Haigh Eliot Died 29th January 1947”

Vivien Haigh-Eliot (formerly Vivienne Haigh-Wood) is buried in Pinner New Cemetery, North London. She was born in Bury, Lancashire on 28th May 1888, and famously was the first wife of modernist poet, author, playwright and publisher T. S. Eliot.

At the time of her death on January 22nd 1947, she was resident at Northumberland House psychiatric hospital in Finsbury Park, having been sectioned in 1938 after a period of erratic and unpredictable behaviour. The cause of death was given as a heart attack.

The green band attaches the headstone to two upright posts to the rear. This is a health and safety measure to avoid accidents caused by toppling headstones which have become prey to subsidence. There are several of these in the cemetery.

Register of Burials with the 
Listing for Vivien

Vivien Haigh-Eliot 1888-1947

A sad reflection of the care afforded to her memory, was that although she died in fact on January 22nd, no-one saw any reason to ensure the correct date was recorded on her headstone.

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A Visit

I visited the grave on November 25th 2011, and so recalling the visit now after several months is a task fraught with the risk of false notes – no, not a risk, but a certainty.

I asked for help at the site office, to find Vivien’s grave. The distance between the cemetery office and the plot is a short one. I was accompanied by the cemetery groundsman, the young man of whom I made my initial enquiry. We walked in silence, he looking from side to side as he walked, verifying the letters and numbers on some mentally-configured grid; and I, simply pacing a step or two behind him, in deference to his knowledge and quietly pleased to have found such a willing helper.

We reached the grave. I made a brief exclamation, the words of which I dare not recall because of the risk of a false note. The gap between anticipation and reality is understood as a shadow which has no definition. The moment of seeing Vivien’s grave for the first time was layered with every element of that gap.

I was in awe of the moment: here was the grave in its simple, physical reality: yet the moment of first sight opened up and absorbed a backwash of surprise and puzzlement, of melancholy.

Immediately obvious was the faded inscription – Vivien’s name is difficult to decipher. Weathering has taken its toll. But equally obvious was the presence of a bright green band of plastic, encircling the headstone and holding it to two wooden stakes. My impromptu guide/groundsman explained the health and safety regulations which create the need to secure those headstones which are prone to toppling due to subsidence. Vivien’s headstone is amongst the several thus affected. A metaphor perhaps for the support of strangers as institutionalised life takes hold.

I was grateful still for the presence of the young man who was helping me. I was curious as to how many people had come, like me, to visit the grave. In his six years in the role, he told me, he had seen only two people before me. I thanked him for his help and let him get back to his work. 

Age, Art and Withering

The Coming of Wisdom with Time

(Published 1916)

Though leaves are many, the root is one;

Through all the lying days of my youth

I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;

Now I may wither into the truth

  - W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)

We learn today that David Bowie has released a new record after 10 years. I was never a fan in his earlier incarnations, though was aware of the effect he was having on the new wave of youth which I was already leaving behind at the time. And because his music is woven now into the fabric of the past 45 years, it is impossible to deny his brilliance, and the huge paradox of his revolutionary, esoteric art combined with his appeal to a huge mass audience.

I really like this song “Where are we now”, which is an honest exploration of how it is to start feeling older. The video with it is extraordinary. No vanity, much depth. I particularly like the images of Berlin in the late 1970s, where Bowie lived for 3 years.  I feel lucky to have had several trips there in the same era.  Didn’t see him though!

The announcement of Bowie’s  record was on BBC news in the morning. In the same programme they had Andrew Motion on to talk about a Poetry competition for teenagers. At the end of the interview, and weaving in an earlier comment about age and Bowie, he chose a Hardy poem, which I found I half-remembered as I had learnt it verbatim for my college exams.

I Look Into My Glass
(Published 1898)

I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, "Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!"

For then I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.

But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.
 - Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

No withering into the truth there, then.

Oddly enough, as part of the focus of past couple of days, on themes of growing older, I was looking at some poems of Yeats, including the short 4-liner above. This one seemed highly appropriate

An Acre Of Grass
(Published 1939)

Picture and book remain,
An acre of green grass
For air and exercise,
Now strength of body goes;
Midnight, an old house
Where nothing stirs but a mouse.

My temptation is quiet.
Here at life's end
Neither loose imagination,
Nor the mill of the mind
Consuming its rag and bone,
Can make the truth known.

Grant me an old man's frenzy,
Myself must I remake
Till I am Timon and Lear
Or that William Blake
Who beat upon the wall
Till Truth obeyed his call;

A mind Michael Angelo knew

That can pierce the clouds, 

Or inspired by frenzy

Shake the dead in their shrouds;

Forgotten else by mankind, 

An old man's eagle mind.
   - W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)

This was part of his “Last Poems”  written in 1939, the year of Yeats’ death, and 20 years after “The Coming of Wisdom with Time” (1919) . Here, rather than withering, he is calling out in his old age, to become like these raging figures of old, who “beat upon the wall” to get truth to show itself, so that he can express it, externalise it (in poetry).  for fear that his “eagle mind” is forgotten to posterity.

Random thoughts.