On Sunday we drove out to two nearby Oxfordshire villages to check out their old parish churches. This is actually a somewhat common hobby around these parts and is known as "church crawling" - much more fun than pub crawling, in my opinion. And you remember more of it, I imagine.
Bampton
First up was Bampton, full name Bampton-in-the-Bush, population 2,500.
It was a very cute and very quiet village. We hardly saw another person and wondered where everyone was until we walked passed the pub and it was quite busy! We should have known.
Watch out for elderly people!
Bampton is very near Brize Norton, where there is a large RAF base. On our way there we were astonished to come over the brow of a hill in the middle of nowhere and suddenly see huge 747s parked at an airport! Here's one flying overhead at the church:
Bampton's church was built in the early 12th century and is very pretty on the outside. It has a huge spire, which is fairly unusual for a church from the Norman period (most have a square, castle-like tower), and a pretty west window like a miniature cathedral.
The heavy spire is supported by mini flying buttresses topped with statues of saints, a feature I've never seen before.
The inside wasn't spectacular, but my favorite part was a small stone reredos (a.k.a rood screen, which usually divides the nave from the altar). It was carved around 1400 and features Christ and the twelve apostles.
The rest of the interior was pretty plain, but I've still never met an old church I didn't like.
Black Bourton
Our next stop was Black Bourton, population 300. This church is much smaller than Bampton's and has the usual Norman squat tower. It has an odd shape: a single narrow nave with one aisle tacked on the left side, which you can especially see in the lower left photo.
I was happy to have spotted the gargoyle characters in the photo above, but unfortunately I completely missed the little priest's door just a few feet away, which has carvings from Saxon (pre-1066) times. I only learned about it when I got home and wrote my article on the church. You can see it in the large picture above (light blue door), but I'm sad I didn't get any detail shots.
But Black Bourton was still my favorite church of the day, because of the fabulous faded murals inside. They were painted in the 1200s and were semi-protected under whitewash from the Reformation until 1932.
On the opposite wall is a large mural of the Adoration of the Magi. On the far right, King Herod points the English-looking Magi towards Bethlehem. On the left, Mary and the baby Jesus receive them.
