Woolpit: Of Wolves, Green Children & Green Men.

Woolpit, Suffolk or Wolfpit (Ulfcytel)

 

 

The small rural bus journeyed me across central Suffolk, inducing travel-sickness as it veered the bends of the country roads and its villages.  I had come to see the architecturally celebrated church of St Marys, Woolpit.  The village named not after the riches of the mediaeval wool-country but earlier, from the Anglo-Saxon Wolf-pits. Immediately from exiting the bus, we are within the charm of the triangular villlage green; itself a survival of the Saxons - used for penning-in the livestock.., from the wolves and such like.  The village has all the right components: Post-office selling faded/aged postcards and itself carrying an advertising hoarding from the early 20th century 'Telegrams sent from here!'.  There is also the village pub: http://www.woolpitswan.co.uk/homepage.htm, an unpretentious bake-house, a lovely cafe (that kindly warmed my wendling self with a generous cafetiere for one), above the aforementioned cafe - the village museum; set within a listed timbered building and open for a few token hours a week.  Immediately within the village green triangle, is the Church of St Mary.

 

St Marys, Woolpit.  The south porch (15th c), like a stone reliquery.

 

As we approach the church, we see the astonishing porch for which Woolpit (along with its fine double-hammerbeam roof) is reknown.  I stand and marvel for almost ten minutes; I am being watched by a couple tending a grave.  I always appear suspicious and almost convince myself I am here to 'rob the silver & remove the roof lead'.  Its okay though, I remove my camera from the satchel and this veils the threat I must hold to the grave-tenders.  Inside the porch door, a lierne roof vault; 'rare in East Anglia' (Jenkins 2000) and, above that a first-storied room that likely held parish records or venued meetings.  The small ancient door steps down into the South aisle.

 

The double hammerbeam roof & English Gothic Nave of St Marys, Woolpit.

 



St Marys. Woolpit.  Green men disguised within the choirs poppy-headed finnials.

 

St Marys, Woolpit. Another Green man.

 

St Marys, Woolpit. Artifact of a Wode-man.

 

I discover (as the above photographs illustrate) Green men, disguised within the foliate of the bench ends.  Also, near the Chancel a carved Wode-man of the forest.  All intriguing, given that Woolpit is associated with the tale of 'the green children'.  The story hails from the reign of King Stephen (1135 - 1154) and tells us that a young boy & girl were found by the Wolf-pits, they were green-skinned, dressed in strange clothes & spoke a foreign tongue. The boy was to die, yet the girl was to live, lose her green appearance and marry; going on to live in Kings Lynn.  The tale reeks heavily of the aural-folk tales of Anglo-Saxons & the Vikings.  It also has parables to Gawain & the Green Knight, Robin Hood & the Babes in the Wood.

 

St Marys, Woolpit.  Chancel screen. An original rood beam exits above.

 

St Marys, Woolpit. Screen paint detail.  The colours of the middle-ages mingles with Victorian.

 

St Marys, Woolpit. The pews are near all 1400s, all with animal/bestiary carvings.

 

 

I sit and absorb the building; the rain pattering away outside.  I read the church guide and go in search of the buildings treasures.  The only disapointment here is the window glass. The Ailses are narrow which Betjeman ( 1958) deem were for processional use only.  I eventually take my leave, ducking out of the short aged door.  I examine the porch interior in more detail.  It really is akin to a stone reliquery, like an exterior chantry.  The lierne vault is littered with animal faces. As I exit, two gentlemen & a lady approach; themselves armed with a county church arcitecture guide.  "Look, somebody else doing what we do Robin!"; proclaims the outwardly more eccentric of the men.., the lady appeared more 'taken out on a rainy-day trip', and less enthusiastic.  They talk briefly of all the locked churches they have encountered. I bid them good-day and, make way to the village.

 

 

St Marys, Woolpit. The South Porch.

 

St Marys, Woolpit. Clerestory flush-work & the poorer North side construction; the North side of English Parish Church buildings often suffer so, much like the poor - also traditionally buried in the dismal North aspect of graveyards.

 

Woolpit, Suffolk.

 

I find the Bake-house and take the last two homemade cheese-scones & a ginger-cake, wrapped in paper - stuff them into my canvas satchel & then off into the warm of the tea-room below the museum (the orange timbered building).  I am served hot coffee and a baked potato before heading back to the post office for the village-shuttle bus service, back to Bury St Edmunds.  I plan to return on a warmer day than this and explore the Spring/Lady Well.

 

 

Woolpit, Suffolk.

 

Woolpit is found on Ordnance Survey, Explorer series sheet 211: Grid Reference: TL973624.

The well can be found: http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=8322

 

 



 



 

The Gentlemen Travellers V: Wychwood & Charlbury (Oxon).

 

 

 

 

Prelude: Friday night is most certainly drinking night in Oxford.

So I dashed from work, competing with the four pm Friday school traffic and later I am delivered by a rather odourous bus into Stourbridge. Within an another hour I am standing on a near empty platform at Leamington Spa Railway Station, awaiting the train to dear Oxford. It has been a swelter of a day and I am encouraging the welcome breeze down my linen shirt in attempt to dry the the man-boob sweat patches; I am seemingly lactating.  You see, I am off to meet the gentlemen for a planned (walk & Ales) merriment through Charlbury & the ancient Wychwood Forest.  First we have drinking to do and as per usual I have arranged to meet at our regular 'The Eagle & Child'.  I arrive early and stand outside the pub on St Giles when I notice an old bar-fly friend of yore "Neil", I squealed.., "it's been at least two years!". Neil is on his way home from work, weighted shopping bags in hand. Before long Mr Leon G Thompson has arrived (fag held aloft) "Mwaah, alright bitches?".  Thompson & I cajole dear Neil into drinking with the 'just stay an hour, have a couple' gimmick; his shopping de-frosting before our eyes; he is due home whereby his partner awaits him, watching Dr Who on the telly.  Dr Dunn ambles down from his Summertown home and before long we were entrenched into holding court within the varying boozers: 'The Lamb & Flag, The Blenheim, The Bear, The Grapes and finally it is already last orders in the Castle Tavern.  It was here upon the basement pool table that Thompson poses as 'the death of Chatterton'; the pool room once being the venue of a failed gay sun bed initiative by the previous departing landlord.. Oxford just doesnt want for orange'd homossexuals.  The Dr & I take several bottles of plonk back to his rooms in Summertown, Thompson insisting on heading home; he could not face a full night of partial sleep so we agree to meet mid-day at Oxford Railway station. The Dr & I shlonk the plonk and critique the varying versions of Allegri Misierere & the Bach Cello suites.

 

 

Leon G Thompson sports a 1950s starched scarf. The Eagle & Child public house. Oxford.

 

 

 

To Charlbury... "shall we just stay in the pub?"

I wake the Dr with a cup of Earl-Grey. A bus into Oxford, bustling as ever and the sun gleaming off the ochre city stone. Leon is already at the station and we boarded the slow, heaving train northwards. We digress various hilarities of the previous night, before long we exit the train and amble into the village of Charlbury. We found the church (St Marys) whereby Dr Dunn executes his distaste of the last century renovations into their visitor book: see photograph below.  Not before too long we discover the comforts of the  Rose & Crown. http://www.roseandcrown.charlbury.com/. A large Red Setter dog lies sprawled, cooling itself on the tiled floor.  We do much the similar within a slightly rasied booth, spreading out the OS Map and deciding upon a route; savouring the White Horse ales 'Wayland Smithy' beer as we  glean upon it.  Outside the Bees hum on their landing approach of the Hollyhocks.  Inside the air hangs languid quiet with just a couple of the regulars sipping beer and reading the weekend newspapers with an occaisioned grunt.  We can barely be bothered to leave. "Just another? .., for the road?", "Alright, but no more than 5 pints, or we are wasting our time".

 

 

 

I admire the Corbels, Dr Dunn considers St Marys church as a "Hideous monstrosity": Charlbury.

 

 

Monty, beer-tanned & armed with the OS Land-ranger: The Rose & Crown, Charlbury.

 

 

Olympic flags Charlbury.

 

Eventually we haul ourselves reluctantly from the comforts of the pub and step out into the glare of the sunshine.  Within minutes we were out of the village and skirting the dry-stone walls, turning onto the approach for Cornbury Hall -  crossing over the trickling river Evenlode. As we rounded the baroque gates of the hall, we at once entering a (once formal) parkland; it is now left to flourish a little more natural than it was originally intended.  We grapple a route, wendling under dense tree canopies. Within a short time we are presented with a plateau of tiered pools, tempting Mr. L. G Thompson to take a dip!...

 

 

The Parkland of Cornbury Hall.

 

 

The succession of tiered pools bought about the beauty of the Damsel flies.

 

 

Only mad dogs and Englishmen... would head out into this early afternoon sun -  particuarly after a belly-full of beer!  Thompson decides (in the moment) that this is a suitable time & place to take a skinny dip; in a no trespassing gentrified estate. Egged-on by myself & the Dr before long he is teetering on the pool peripheries, gasping as his balls kiss the icy waters.  What we didnt know at the time was that, Thompson was ahead of a trend that followed in the spirit of writer & naturalist Roger Deakin, just a week later photographs were to hit the newspapers of herds of naked swimmers in the very same place: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/naked-swimmers-at-cornbury-park-in-oxfordshire-1255840 (apologises for it being in the Daily Mirror).

 

Mr. L Thompson - before the icy waters kissed his balls.

 

Mr. L Thompson:  He is a tad shy regarding his naked shots however, he adds that at a price he can be emailed privately regarding these.

 

The Dr & I savour the sun whilst Thompson frolicked like a playful dog in the watery reeds.

 

Monty rips his arse rounding a barbed gate.

 

Get out of the water, take cover in the trees! 

Thompson hauls himself ashore, wearing only his training shoes & sagging boxers... drying like a dog in the sun.  We head down to the lower pools & after some time negiotiating a route over a fence, we enter into the cools of the Wychwood.  The name is more commonly known for the brewer, however the Wychwood was once an ancient forest for which formed part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the Hwicce and subsequently, an ancient royal hunting forest into the mediaeval.  Today we are the Bretwalda's of the woods!!.., red-faced from those White Horse brewery Ales & yearning for more; beer-tanned we call it.

 

In the Wychwood.

 

In the Witch/Wych-wood. 

We traverse an hour or so through the woodland. Our OS Map illustrate 'Tumuli', Bronze-age round barrows.  Can we find them? Do we buggery! We do encounter a rather strange shrine.  A stick-pile adorned with Disney toys.  I feel its the site of something grisly and prefer to walk-on; the woodland has associations with ghosts & the paranormal, if this is your thing.  Eventually we come to a cross-roads.  A right-turn will take us a circular route back into Charlbury. We feel dehydrated and sunny-day dusty.  The pub is in order!  Back to the friendly landlord of the Rose & Crown where we stay until the last train back to Oxford.  As we depart Charlbury, the sun sets gloriously and the distant sound of a small village music festival drones away on the horizon.

 

Sun set at Charlbury, Oxon.

 

Thompson poses as Henry Wallis (1856): The Death of Chatterton.

 

 

The Gentlemen Travellers next take on: Tackley, Shipton on Cherwell, Hampton Gay & Kidlington - forthcoming.