A visit to Llangrannog

 'Where shall we go today?' 

We'd met a couple of women, one a poet, in the car park in New Quay the evening before, and they'd recommended visiting Llangrannog, where they lived, so that's where we went. 

First stop, homage to a Victorian poet whose work neither of us have read because she wrote in Welsh, Sarah Jane Rees, whose bardic name was Cranogwen, and who sounds really interesting, having gone to sea as a child with her father, later setting up her own navigation school. She also edited a Welsh language women's magazine for bluestockings and proto-Suffragettes, lectured in America, and lived openly, it appears, with successive female partners, whilst still being a staunch Methodist and founder of the South Wales Women's Temperance Union. Her grave is in the churchyard of St Carranog's Church and, pleasingly, is entirely in Welsh.  

(Incidentally, St Carranog, or Carantoc, is the same saint who sailed across the Bristol Channel in a coracle, landing at Carhampton on the Somerset coast, where he tamed a dragon at the behest of King Arthur and made an appearance in a sequence of poems in my collection, Map Reading for Beginners.)  

Sarah Jane Rees is also commemorated in the village with a very newly unveiled and extremely impressive statue by Sebastien Boyson, who also sculpted the statue of the miner at the Six Bells memorial. 

After lunch on the front, we went down onto the beach ... 

... and past the rock called Carreg Bica, which, according to legend, was the giant Bica's tooth, spat out when he had a spell of toothache.

I think it looks more like an angel from behind. 

From the neighbouring cove, we climbed the steep steps up the cliff to the coast path. 

stonecrop and slate

Our plan was to walk to the end of the Ynys Lochtyn headland, where there's a colony of seals, but it was very hot and we both had spells of feeling slightly giddy, so we didn't descend to the headland, but looked down on it instead from the heights of the cliff path ... 

... before turning around and walking back to Llangrannog via a path set rather more inland than the outgoing route along the edge of the cliff. 

It wasn't the end of the world not seeing seals, not least since we had Cwtch with us who could have disturbed them, and anyhow, we'd seen some back in 2016, further down the coast at Strumble Head ... 

... and our consolation prize was a pair of choughs, seeing off some gulls from their nesting area. 

New Quay, Allt Penrhiwgaled, Cei Bach ... and Llareggub

What with losing our caravan and our Arts Council funding, which meant losing a job and retraining over a couple of years, which then stretched to three owing to a worldwide pandemic, plus the worldwide pandemic itself, we hadn't been on holiday since 2017 - that is, until this last week, which we spent in an 18th century coach house on a farm just outside New Quay in Ceredigion.

There are steps to one side of the building which suggest the upper floor, now a bedroom and bathroom, was once a hayloft or similar.

dovecote

And very picturesque it all was too, even if the anchors were a bit unexpected and reminded me of when Luke Jerram parked several fishing smacks in Leigh Woods, high above the Avon Gorge in Bristol. 

New Quay being our nearest town, we visited a couple of times, the first being the evening of our arrival, when it felt very crowded, not least because the tide was in and there was no beach to soak up the overflow of people. 

'Fair Winds and Following Seas', a 2019 sculpture by David Appleyard, with an accompanying poem by Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch

Since the Northerner's must-see of the holiday was the bottlenose dolphins in the bay, it was rather gratifying to be able to cross them off our list straight away - though, of course, they might have been porpoises, who can tell from a long distance?

Another day we walked down from the farm through the woods above the little river Gido to the coast, emerging just before Cei Bach, at the north end of the bay.

It was a very pleasant wander along the beach to New Quay, with a scramble over rocks just before we get there, the tide not being quite low enough to have uncovered a route over sand all the way. 

washed-up compass (dial) and blue jellyfishes

Both Cei Bach and New Quay have strong connections with Dylan Thomas, with New Quay joining Laugharne in staking a claim to be the inspiration for Llareggub in 'Under Milkwood'. I have to admit, we didn't follow New Quay's Dylan Thomas trail, as the waymarks seemed to be mostly of the 'this closed restaurant that is now under renovation used to be the post office where Dylan Thomas posted his scripts to London' variety, while the bungalow he stayed in has been pulled down and the pub he drank at is closed. Apologies to New Quay but it's rather less resonant than the Boathouse, the writing room, Brown's Hotel and Dylan's modest grave marker in Laugharne. Not that I'm qualified to join any scholarly argument, apart from to say Llareggub must surely be located primarily in Dylan's imagination. 

A pint at the shifting sea  

An ironstone odyssey in Oxfordshire

Several lives ago I lived briefly in Banbury, and it was there, in one of its bookshops, that I came across a book about the Arts and Crafts Movement, and realised that many of the things I'd loved from childhood belong to that aesthetic. This epiphany plunged me into an exploration of the life and work of William Morris, which in turn took me back to his inspiration, namely, mediaeval art. And I soon learnt that I was living just a stone's throw away from churches and museums stuffed full of Arts and Crafts, and mediaeval, treasures. However, because I had a toddler and a baby at the time, I never got the chance to visit any of them, which is why, upon finding myself in Oxfordshire with a few hours to spare, I decided to head north towards Banbury - though not to the town itself, I haven't quite got the stomach for revisiting former marital homes just yet. Instead, I visited a few churches that had evaded me till now. 

First stop furthest, Horley, home to at least a few eccentricities  ...  

The ironstone church is dedicated to St Etheldreda, which suggests there might have been an earlier Anglo-Saxon church here, though the most ancient parts of this building date from the 12th century.

The church is simple, yet full of intriguing features; far too many, in fact, to list. Here are some of my favourites:

12th century tub font

mediaeval glass

15th century mural of St Christopher carrying the infant Christ

15th century mural of St Zita, whose body, like St Etheldreda's, was found to be incorruptible

I had a chat with a woman arranging flowers and she said it's a mystery why there's a panel of roundels containing the letter t painted on this wall. Maybe there's an association with a shrine to St Thomas of Canterbury ... we just don't know.

Also painted, and very attractive, are the 19th century pulpit and the 20th century rood screen.

A missing effigy means there's a handy space to store a carpet.

a  Norman piscina near the altar

I loved this little money box to put donations in, bearing signs of an attempt on its integrity. 

some Baroque headstones in the churchyard

My next stop was St Mary's at Adderbury, nine miles way, another ironstone church famed for its 14th century friezes on the north and south chancel walls. Luckily for me, they're on the outside of the building, for I'd made a basic error and failed to take into account that it was the first Saturday of June, and there were bound to be at least some bridegrooms who'd let down their family and friends by failing to remember it would be FA Cup Final day when his fiancée set her heart on this date for their wedding.

This was the closest I got to seeing inside the church. Meanwhile, some of the wedding party arrived on a bus, which seemed a bit risky to me in these post-Brexit days of hardly any bus drivers. 

So, let's look at the outside, including the gargoyles and those amazing carvings.

The carvings are really worth a good look, and I only had my phone camera with me, so here's a link to some detailed photos and information. 

A row of headstones

Adderbury tithe barn

By now I was in a bit of a tizz in case the focal point of my trip - another ironstone St Mary's, this time at Bloxham, where I knew there were windows by Morris & Co - was also hosting a wedding. Not to be able to go inside would be awful. I arrived with my heart in my mouth ... 

... and there were no pealing bells, no fancy cars adorned with white ribbons, no happy-ever-afters in the offing, so I tried the handle of the first door I came to ... and it was locked. 

Disconsolate, I wandered around the churchyard. How unlucky was that? Even the sun was in the wrong place, making it impossible to get a remotely acceptable view of the church's carved frieze. 

Then I came across another, splendid door in the South Porch. I pushed it and ... 

... it opened. Hallelujah!

15th century font

I made a beeline for the windows before a sudden tornado could blow them in and dash the goblet of victory from my lips. There was some mediaeval glass ... 

... a window by Charles Kempe (which didn't photograph at all well), and these Morris & Co beauties ... 

The East window

The Memorial Chapel window (North aisle)

St Christopher (in the chancel)

I was especially taken with the colours and simplicity of the St Christopher window.

Other treasures included ... 

... this carved capital, from this angle showing St George depicted as a knight from the time of King Edward I ...

... the painted rood screen, a survival from the 15th century and showing damage inflicted on it during the Reformation, when the original cross disappeared and the vicar, John Wade, was sentenced to be hanged from the church steeple (though apparently survived to write his will a few years later) ...   

... the remnant of a Doom mural, above the chancel arch ...

... yet another (fragmentary) St Christopher ...

... and this mural I've seen described as depicting the Life of an Unknown Martyr, but elsewhere, the King and his People.

This spectacular 12th century Norman tympanum over the door to the vestry was probably originally outside ... 

... and while it's not to my taste, the monument of Sir John Thorneycroft, who died in 1725, reminded me strongly of that of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Richard Kidder and his wife, who died during the Great Storm of 1703, when a chimney fell on their bed, and whose daughter can be seen in a similar reclining position in Wells Cathedral - though Sir John's breast and knee clearly don't get groped anywhere near as much as Susanna Everard's do. 

If I have a criticism - OK, I do have a criticism - it's that it's a shame, surely, to wedge a 15th century clamp-fronted oak chest behind some pews where it can't be glimpsed, let alone admired; worse still to leave bin bags on top of it. 

And wouldn't the Jacobean font cover look better on the font than on the floor? 

I expect the powers-that-be of Bloxham have their reasons. 

Another quick perambulation outside, where, in the arch of the south porch, I spotted these crusader crosses ... 

... and some wonderful carvings around the door I tried to enter through originally, in the tower. Perhaps if I hadn't been so taken with them, I might have noticed the notice instructing visitors to use the other door. 

Then on to Great Tew, where I wanted to visit St Michael and All Angels, which also has some mediaeval paintings. (Fortunately I managed to cross the road a little more safely than this toad.)

Another ironstone church, another splendid Norman arch to enter under. 

The 15th century seemed to be featuring large on this jaunt. Here is another 15th century font, somewhat less delicate than Bloxham's ... 

and this, which I absolutely love, is a 15th century eagle lectern that reminded me of a ship's figurehead.

This knight and his supposed wife, whose effigies date from the 14th century, are now separated by a screen which forms the wall of the vestry. He is believed to be Sir Robert De Vere, but it's all a bit confusing as its date doesn't fit with the Robert de Veres (Earls of Oxford) known to posterity.

The female effigy is of an abbess, thought to be Abbess Margery Dyve of Godstowe, who lived from 1316 to 1355. She is believed to be the widow of Sir Robert de Vere, in which case she would have committed herself to Godstow after his death.   

Another knight and his lady are commemorated in this monumental brass, which you have to get at by rolling back a carpet. This is John Wylcotes and his wife, Alice Chelmscote, the brass dating from 1410. 

It was the 14th century wall paintings I'd come for, though, vestiges of which you can make out behind the altar. More visible is the panel comprising scenes from the Passion in strip form on the wall of the south aisle. That it has a Victorian memorial slap bang in the middle of it points to the fact that like almost all mediaeval murals, these were whitewashed during our country's cultural revolutions of the 16th and 17th centuries and forgotten about for centuries. 

The detail of this mural can be read about here.

I'd planned to finish my ironstone odyssey with a visit to see the paintings at St Bartholomew's Church in Yarnton, but Son the Elder texted to say he'd finished roboteering an hour and a half earlier than planned and needed picking up, and maybe it was as well as it's built of limestone. 

It had been a treat of a jaunt, though, with bonus sightings of six red kites, and hopefully there'll be an opportunity to return to Oxfordshire before too long.