Smiling face from the 1200s or 1300s. Medieval wall painting in Parish Church of St Mary in the Cotswolds, at Ampney St. Mary, Gloucestershire, England.
Ampney St. Mary, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom: this smiling face on a cracked and cobweb-strewn wall is among the fragmentary medieval wall paintings to survive inside the Cotswolds ‘Ivy Church’, the Norman Parish Church of St. Mary. The church acquired its informal name centuries after it had lost its congregation in about 1350, as the Black Death plague pandemic swept through Western Europe. The villagers seem to have left their homes around the church and to have rebuilt them on higher ground more than a mile away. The last few houses on the old site began to decay when the nearby road fell out of use in the 18th century, and in 1877, when the parish was united with Ampney St. Peter, the isolated church was abandoned to fast-climbing ivy. The ivy was finally cleared from the church in 1913. It has since been restored and is now open to visitors once again.
Size: 7360px × 4912px
Location: Ampney St. Mary, Gloucestershire, England, United Kingdom
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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