20 Sep 2014. <GB-ENG> Tewkesbury, & Deerhurst, & Chedworth, Glos —
Odda's Chapel is a small late-Saxon chapel built by
Odda, a kinsman of Edward the Confessor, in memory of his brother Ælfric, and dedicated in 1056. Typical of Saxon chapels, its dimensions are 1:2:3 (width:height:length). This is a remarkable survival in a land where many old churches have been allowed to crumble. It only survived because it was a good size for a farmhouse, so was given a coat of plaster and whitewash and preserved for that purpose.
Till in time, the hand of progress came to try what could be done,
Both to modernise and renovate with care,
So they chipped away the plaster of the ages dead and gone
And they found — a little Saxon Chapel there.
Admiral R.A. Hopgood, A Little Sanctuary, 1919
Near Odda's Chapel is the
Parish Church. We had to get in and out fairly promptly, as they were setting up for a wedding a couple of hours later. In spite of this, the Church Warden took us around on a bit of a guided tour. There has been a church on this site since about AD700, and considerable parts of the early Saxon masonry still remain. The inner rectangle of the church — the lower portions of the east and west walls and the north and south walls of the chancel and nave are original Saxon, the earliest masonry dating to about AD700. Six nave arches were added about 1200, piercing the original walls and creating aisles to either side.
Alphege (Ælfheah), about AD953-1012, was professed monk at Deerhurst. In 1006 he succeeded Ælfric as Archbishop of Canterbury. He was captured by the Danes, held for a huge ransom which Alphege exhorted his people
not to pay. He was martyred in 1012. Thomas Beckett, in his last sermon, referred to Alphege as the first Martyr of Canterbury.
A place steeped in history. The old apse has all but disappeared, with only one part of its walls remaining. This section of wall contains a carving of an angel, towards the top, looking outwards. It appears that the nave was not semicircular, but consisted of seven flat walls on a semicircular plan. A recent expert in Anglo-Saxon carvings has suggested that the carving of this 'angel' is especially fine, and would suggest instead an archangel. As, according to tradition, there were seven archangels, this would suggest that each of the seven walls of the apse might have borne a carving of an archangel. Whatever the story, a fine relic of the Saxon age!
The church also contains what is regarded as the finest Anglo-Saxon font in existence. It was discovered serving as an animal trough in a nearby farm over a hundred years ago and reunited with its base, which carries the same spiral decoration. There is also a carving of Virgin and Child over the inner entrance door, interestingly commemorating the babe in the womb rather than in the arms, and is regarded as one of the finest surviving examples of Saxon sculpture. Today it looks rather abstract in its form, but if you remember that the features would have been painted onto the simple outline sculpture, this would put it into its proper context.
There's another piece of interesting history in the church. It was the parish church of the Strickland family, one of whom,
William Strickland, travelled to the New World with John Cabot, and is credited with introducing turkey to England. His coat of arms appears beneath a family-commemorative stained glass window, and its crest is a turkey.
We left Deerhurst and travelled to
Chedworth, where there is a
Roman villa. The roads to this site are interesting to say the least — we drove for at least two miles over hilly (steep) one-lane tracks, with passing points every so often — exactly the kind of roads Susie does
not want to drive. But we got there, and were most pleasantly surprised. The villa was discovered in Victorian times, and Victorian methods were used to stabilise it — not what we would do today, but at least they preserved the site. The Roman walls remained to a height of possibly two or three feet — the Victorians capped them with tiles or horizontal capstones. The National Trust have recently put a building over the bathhouse area so they can preserve and display the mosaics properly. And the story of this site is mosaics — there are incredible mosaics through the whole site. There are even some not on display, excavated recently, and then reburied to preserve them.
Another feature of the Chedworth site is the pheasants that inhabit the place, We saw at least ten on the grounds, and then as we drove out we saw fields with literally hundreds! Also, as we were leaving the carpark, we were treated to a procession of grey squirrels through the treetops — will we ever see a red one?
Anyway, we left Chedworth, drove to nearby Northleach to check out a Museum of Mechanical Music that Warren had noted on the map. It will be open tomorrow at 10, so we dropped a little northwards on the A429 and have found a good layby overlooking "The Paddocks", some rather impressive Cotswolds farmland.
Distance driven — today, 78 miles ( 125 km ); to date, 7,861 miles ( 12,651 km )
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