Having visited Bradford-on-Avon on Thursday night for Words and Ears (a splendid night of poetry), we were back again on Saturday morning for the Kennet & Avon Floating Market.
We arrived timelily, the plan being to pick up some copies of Dru Marland's new book of illustrated poetry, Drawn Chorus, and some of our friends Chris and Jinny's wonderful leatherwork. (I had my hopes set on a leather-covered notebook to write poems in.)
Dru was doing a brisk trade in books and cards and prints.
As for Chris and Jinny - well, I couldn't see them for punters, some of whom had been queuing for an hour; in fact, a couple of customers had come over specially from Germany.
All I could see was the garden of their narrowboat.
I couldn't face joining the scrum for something so precious, though Cathy, my companion, was lucky and secured a beautiful pair of earrings once the feeding frenzy had died down a little.
I decided it was probably better to commission a cover. (I'm good at biding my time as long as there is time to bide.)
NB Eve flying the European flag
Cathy isn't all that familiar with Bradford-on-Avon, so after we'd had lunch in the pub, and caught up with our friends, the singer-songwriter Lou Bell and potter Jan Lane, we went for a wander around town.
First stop, the massive plane tree by the River Avon ...
... and then the excellent bookshop Ex Libris, whose poetry section is in a shed at the end of the garden.
I decided we should probably visit some of the more conventional tourist spots, so we headed for the wonderful Saxon Church of St Laurence. On the way, we diverted into the parish church of Holy Trinity.
For some reason I hadn't been in there before - I think at least a couple of times it had been closed.
There were a few details I was taken with ...
... this pre-Reformation reredos in the north wall which has somehow survived ...
... this cheery little chap on a 17th century tomb ...
... this fragment of a mediaeval wall painting showing the Virgin Mary being taught by her mother, Anne ...
... this Flemish roundel in a stained glass window showing Christ breaking bread with two apostles and a dog with a human face, a common depiction then but still a bit disquieting.
I was also impressed, in a horrified sort of way, to see that the church had no less than five priests in the plague years of 1348-49.
But there were other things I really disliked, notably the Victorian pillars wound round with ribbons, the fact there wasn't a guide book, and the dispiritingly corporate feel the place has acquired.
Much more to my taste is the 'lost' Saxon Church of St Laurence, one of the most atmospheric churches I've ever been in, even after repeated visits. I love it.
It is at least 1100 and possibly 1300 years old, and is one of the few buildings I know, the worn step of which isn't painted brilliant yellow. Hooray!
Oh and the play of light and shadow is just beautiful.
It was good to catch up with the angels.
New since my previous visit was the addition of two pieces of stone above the altar, which is made up of pieces of Saxon stonework found near by, and the fragment of a cross: namely, a ring of stone carved in 2012 by John Maine, which has been set above a piece of 150 million year old fossilised tree.
The effect is stunning.
Coffin at Church of St Laurence
Coffin at Bradford-on-Avon Tithe Barn
Time for one more place - it had to be the Tithe Barn, didn't it? No apologies for yet more photos of a building I visit regularly.
Marks of apotropaios on the stonework around the doors
Up on the tow path, the same band of troubadours was performing who played at Chris and Jinny's wedding last September, but it was time for us to be making tracks home. The Floating Market will be back, however - in Newbury from 26th to 28th August, and again in Bradford-on-Avon in time for all your Christmas Shopping needs.
Finding myself at a loose end on the north side of Gloucester for a couple of hours yesterday morning, I took myself nine miles up the road to Deerhurst, somewhere I've wanted to visit for some time on account of its brace of Saxon Churches. Yes, two Saxon churches within spitting distance of each other. Brilliant.
First stop, Odda's Chapel, which Earl Odda, a relative of King Edward the Confessor, had built for the benefit of the soul of his brother, Ælfric, who died nearby in 1053.
Dedicated in 1056, it was incorporated into a 16th or early 17th century farmhouse, its nave being turned into a kitchen and its chancel a bedroom. Like St Laurence's, the Saxon church in Bradford-on-Avon, it was only in the second half of the 19th century that it was 'rediscovered' and separated from the farmhouse, itself an impressive historic building.
A Saxon flower arrangement
This is a copy of the original stone with the dedication inscription that is now held in the Ashmolean in Oxford. It was discovered in 1675, entangled in the roots of a nearby apple tree which was blown down in a storm.
‘Earl Odda
ordered this royal hall to be built and dedicated in honour of the Holy Trinity
for the soul of his brother Ælfric, taken up from this place. Ealdred was the
bishop who dedicated the building on the second day before Ides of April in the
fourteenth year of the reign of Edward, king of the English’
Odda's Chapel is just the sort of church I love - a small, dark, rural place of worship. Having found St Laurence's deeply affecting, I was expecting a tidal wave of history crash down on me, but - oddly - I didn't feel it.
My chief presentiment - because I've decided you can have a presentiment about the past - was that cows had probably been kept in there at some point.
On to the Priory Church of St Mary, which is 300 years older than Odda's Chapel, its contruction having commenced by at least 800AD, and possibly during the late 6th century.
If what we know of the history of the church is anything to go by, Deerhurst was an important site in the territory of the Saxon Hwicce, a subkingdom of Mercia. Excavations have uncovered remains of the Saxon monastery, with 7th century burial remains.
I was captivated by these very much more modern headstones in the churchyard, a full millennium older.
Although tucked away in a village, St Mary's is an important church and knows it. What's more, it was full of wedding flowers from the previous day and bustling parishioners arranging homely-looking apples and small, decorative pumpkins ready for the Harvest Festival, which was due to start presently.
I knew I was going to have to be quick ...
... so I was startled to feel the weight of centuries - all those lives! - settle on my chest and in the base of my throat. By the time the vicar came over to ask me to stay to the service, I was overwhelmed to the point of tears. She probably thought I was a bit bonkers.
Small chapel at the end of the north aisle - herringbone stonework, a tomb chest and tomb slabs and brasses on the floor
The church chest dating from 1674
The west wall of the nave with its high, double-headed window
One of the beast heads now on either side of the inner door but which would have originally flanked the outer door
Nave capital c 1200
Mediaeval stained glass in the west window of the south aisle
Carving of the Virgin with child, early 9th century
And then there's the font. 'Discovered' - like so many others - being used as a trough in the field over 100 years ago, it is acknowledged as the finest Saxon font in existence, being carved from a single block of limestone with a spiral decoration.
I want to go back and study it when it isn't all lit up.
A mysterious sign saying 'To the Angel' took me around the outside of the church to the ruined 9th century apse, high on the remaining wall of which ...
... is this Saxon carving.
Saxon herringbone stonework
A reminder of how close we are to the border with Wales
Back in the churchyard, nature bestowed her own harvest upon me - conkers from a horse chestnut and high above, six ravens having a natter. Here are three of them, the others being barely visible in cloud.
I'd noticed that the footpath through the churchyard was on top of what looked like a modern dyke. There were floodgates too, between the two churches, and a couple of depthmarkers. I decided to see how close the culprit was.
On the way to the river I passed this oak with the perfect writing room and a desire path leading towards it.
And there, one field away, was the River Severn, strangely dark despite the beautiful October sun, as if it already has some tricks up its long, barely wrinkled sleeve.
We arrived timelily, the plan being to pick up some copies of Dru Marland's new book of illustrated poetry, Drawn Chorus, and some of our friends Chris and Jinny's wonderful leatherwork. (I had my hopes set on a leather-covered notebook to write poems in.)
Dru was doing a brisk trade in books and cards and prints. 
