The Dover road annals The Dover road : annals of an ancient turnpike doverroadannalso00harp Year: 1922 82 THE DOVER ROAD Chalk church is a very much unrestored building of flint and rubble, dating from the thirteenth century. Its south aisle was j)ulled down at some remote period. There still remains, and in very good preservation, too, a singular Early English carving over the western door representing a grinning countryman holding an immense flagon in his two hands and gazing upward towards a whimsically-con- torted figure that seems to be nearly all head and teeth. Between the two is an
The Dover road annals The Dover road : annals of an ancient turnpike doverroadannalso00harp Year: 1922 82 THE DOVER ROAD Chalk church is a very much unrestored building of flint and rubble, dating from the thirteenth century. Its south aisle was j)ulled down at some remote period. There still remains, and in very good preservation, too, a singular Early English carving over the western door representing a grinning countryman holding an immense flagon in his two hands and gazing upward towards a whimsically-con- torted figure that seems to be nearly all head and teeth. Between the two is an empty tabernacle which at one time before the destruction of '' idolatrous statues ' would have held a figure of the Virgin. The two remaining figures prob- ably illustrate the celebra- tion of ' Church ales,' a yearly festival formerly common to all English villages, and held on the day sacred to the particular saint to whom the church was dedicated. On these occasions there was used to be general jollity ; feasting and drinking; manly sports, such as boxing, wrestling, and games at quarter-staff, would be indulged in, and the day was held as a fair, to which came jugglers and players of interludes and itinerant vendors from far and near. The Church, of course, being the original occasion of the merry-making, looked benignly upon it, and provided the funds for the malt ANCIENT CARVING—CHALK.
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Keywords: archive, book, drawing, historical, history, illustration, image, page, picture, print, reference, vintage
