Norman beakheads featuring mythical beasts, birds - and even human faces - stare down from the round arch over the south doorway of the early 12th century Parish Church of St Swithin at Quenington, Gloucestershire, England, UK. The bizarre Romanesque art - found in England, Ireland, France and Spain - may have represented sins and vices of the world left behind as worshippers entered churches.
Quenington, Gloucestershire, England, UK: Norman beakheads featuring bizarre mythical birds, beasts - and sometimes human faces - clasp the curved moulding over the south doorway to the Cotswolds Parish Church of St Swithin, built in the early 1100s and with its superb Romanesque sculpture officially protected by Grade I Listed Building status. Beakhead ornament, found in England, Ireland, France and Spain, was an outlandish form of medieval art, with the nightmarish heads - sometimes including human faces - staring down from arches as if to frighten visitors. In England, beakheads first appeared at Reading Abbey, Berkshire, which was founded by King Henry I in 1121 - a few years before these beakheads were sculpted at Quenington. Some experts believe that beakheads were an adaptation of the 'biting birds' found in Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscripts, while others think that they represented vices and sins from which the church was the refuge. The rich decoration of both north and south doorways at Quenington includes typical Norman or Romanesque zigzag chevron or dogtooth moulding. The tympanum over the northern arch features a carving of the Harrowing of Hell, while the southern tympanum contains Europe's earliest Coronation of the Virgin artwork still in its original location. Quenington, east of Cirencester and north of Fairford, appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Qvenintone, from the Old English 'Cwenenatun', meaning 'the women's town or settlement' (the word 'queen' has the same derivation). The church, founded by the wealthy Lacy or de Laci family, passed in 1138 to St Peter's Abbey in Gloucester and then in 1193 to the Knights Hospitaller military order. A 13th century Knights Hospitaller gatehouse survives in the village.
Size: 2829px × 2830px
Location: Quenington, Gloucestershire, England, UK
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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