Dolton Church of St Edmund Description
- A beautifully cared for village church
- A fine interior with 13th century pillars
- A stunning Anglo Saxon font
- Fascinating Late Medieval bench ends
- A good collection of stained glass
- A range of goodly Late Medieval roof bosses
- Some very pretty memorials
Dolton Church of St Edmund
Along enchanting lanes ancient when Saxon culture arrived lie a string of enchanted churches, a roll call of deep country Devon; Iddesleigh, Dowland, Dolton, Beaford, parishes reaching down West to the River Torridge and up eastwards to the windswept plateau keeping the River Taw in its place.
And bear those Saxons in mind because there is a doozy of a treasure here in Dolton church, from those very same folk.
It was a rich estate back when the Domesday book was written, in the top twenty percent of all the estates recorded; not such a surprise when looking at its position. Set on a low ridge between two streams that meet just east of the village and flow down to the rich Torridge, eels, fish, waterfowl for the taking, lush pasture for cattle, Dolton is a goodly spot.
A goodly church as well with thirteenth century bits and bobs (old lancet windows in the chancel for one), rebuilt in the sixteenth century and heavily restored in the nineteenth.
A lovely Victorian window
And here is a rather delish Victorian window in the medieval Decorated Gothic style with sweet little buds bursting forth from long straight stems.
This style tends to start in the later thirteenth century (the 1200s) which is lucky, because…
Entering Dolton Church of St Edmund
The interior has these superb row of pillars and arches running down the church, or arcades as they be known, probably dating from that same thirteenth century.
Thirteenth century arcades
And they are indeed superb, graceful wide pointed aches with lovely stonework coming to a full stop at the pillar tops, themselves chunky, powerful and a deal more angular.
There is a possiblity that these were rebuilt by the Victorian restorers but I so do not care; some folk do.
Whatever the truth these early classy arcades underline the wealth of Dolton from the Domesday book onwards.
The fantabulous Saxon Dolton font
Though talking about Domesday times (about 1086 to be accurate) this sensational font is way before that; it is the Saxon treasure I mentioned previously, in total glory with a giddy-gaddy history. For a time it was covered in plaster and cased in wood, a top closing off the bowl and it was used as
a kind of washing-basin apparatus
Exeter and Plymouth Gazette: 13/11/1874
This was likely enough to protect it from shouty shouty Puritans who reckoned everything decorative was either pagan or Papist (the difference being somewhat minimal in their eyes)… or just liked the sound of their own voices… or maybe they they just had their own particular taste in art…
And the carved stone decoration is a wowser.
The lower section has knotwork patterning on all sides, the upper section is another world, pretty much literally (unless your world has dragons in it, in which case welcome to the club).
Most importantly, it is upside down and repurposed (the lower section as well), probably from a single sculpture, definitely a Christian one, maybe a cross or even (less likely?) a funerary monument.
The accepted dating is from the early 800s towards 1000 AD, the stone probably comes from the Weymouth area about a hundred miles eastwards, everybody reckons it is an absolute corker and it is a sophisticated, powerful carving that says a lot about the culture and wealth thisaway backalong.
The dude with the dragons in his nostrils
Because look… and then look again!
A faraway story in an ancient language long faded, still echoing through stone, atoms shimmering into fantastical shapes, old Devon tongues caressing visions of alien worlds whispering through our modern oh-so-misguided materialisms.
Is this death, with the dragon life forces leaving via the nostrils? After all, in Genesis
… the LORD GOD fashioned the humans, humus from the soil, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life
Genesis 2:7 The Hebrew Bible, Trans Robert Alter
It does not take an Einstein (luckily for moi) to work out that that the breath of life might say toodle-oo by the same route.
The details are the thing though, the two dragons quite different, the human head with eyes wide open and only a couple of teeth (death again springs to mind), the whole interlaced with what seems to be foliages, similar to the lower sections… the web of the Divine, the tree of life still there in death… Well, maybe, it sure makes sense to me but we are so far removed form the original culture that we just do not know.
Though it is art, and great art at that, and great art inspires visions and interpretations down the centuries that dance joyfully through our own imaginings.
More dragons, no nostrils
Dragons again on two other sides of the upper section, or at least we call them dragons with all that rich hinterland of meanings that our modern word ‘dragon’ comes with, a hinterland probably a very foreign country to the carvers and viewers of this rich universe.
The foliage that interlaces them, that bridles and binds them, is possibly again the Tree of Life, ruling over the Life Force that the critters represent and bringing Christ to the wilderness of our pagan ancestors.
The Tree of Life?
Because here, on the final face of the upper section, is the foliage (the Tree of Life if you will) forming crosses every which way, a fine clue, if a clue was needed, to who was top boy.
This was, as pointed out, a different world from us, a world of spiritual warfare between God and Satan, personal virtue and the temptations of sin, transforming each individual’s struggle into a ‘glorious battle which every man and woman was called to fight, thus making a heroic ethos into a Christian one… transforming the mundane into the mythical’.
A world where Christ was a warrior, where he mounts the cross as victory…
The young warrior stripped himself then—that was God Almighty — Strong and firm of purpose —he climbed up onto the high gallows, Magnificent in the sight of many. Then he wished to redeem mankind…
All of creation wept, mourning the king’s fall – Christ was upon the cross.
The Dream of Rood, 8th century Anglo-Saxon poem, trl Dr. Aaron K. Hostetter
If you are going to read one Anglo-Saxon poem, do make it this one. It is wonderful.
Interpretations are interpretations, and mine just skims the surface, but we can be reasonably sure that
From some of the earliest commentators (Allen 1902, 253–6) it is common consent that the monument is part of the Wessex school of animal ornament (p. 42), and that its patterns can be paralleled in Mercian and West Saxon manuscripts of the late eighth century.
The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture
Though as ever reducing such art to dates and influences, whilst important, runs the risk of trying to analyse awe, something that never ends well.
A wild unicorn
Though it does seem that other church critters join the wonder party at full throttle, this unicorn from a royal coat of arms seems electrified by a deluge of sensations, vibrant gold breaking out of the mundane.
Beautiful Late Medieval bench ends
Whilst these sixteenth century folk from fairy land, godlings of boundaries, foliate heads from a later world than the font… Still a universe that we can only catch little tastes of as it gambols round the boundaries of modern so-called rationalism.
Pears and grozing irons
The oldest bench ends themselves seem to date from 1581 as this date shows and are connected to the Stafford family; they lived in nearby Stafford Barton for nigh on seven hundred years from the 1200s. Originally they were called Kellaway and then changed their name to Stowford/Staffird.
This coat of arms is theirs and mighty interesting, which coming from a lad who has minimal interest in heraldry is saying something.
Those crossed bars for one, they have little niches near their ends. they are ‘grozing irons’ used to cut glass in Medieval times; The Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass, founded in the fourteenth century, has them in their own coat of arms.
So the Kellaway’s had some connection to glasswork, though what that connection was is not clear.
Then there is the fruit in between the crossed bars, pears to be exact, and Caillou pears to be even more exact, French and mighty popular in England. Caillou is a place in Normandy which gave its name to the pears and possibly also to the Kellaway family, who might or might not have bounced over from there with Billy the Conqueror.
So this family with glass-making connections got themselves a coat of of arms, and one thing coats of arms designers like is making visual puns (there is, to be fair, not a lot of room for fun in heraldry so give the lad or lass a break); they put a bunch of Caillou pears (nowadays called Kelway pears) on the design as their pronunciation was about the same as Kelway, or Kellaway.
But there are two other coats of arms on these old bench ends connected to the Staffords (or Kelloways as were), one commemorating a marriage with the Copplestone family around 1450 and the other with the Prouz family taking place around 1360.
Leopards and pears
Here the benchend showing the Stafford and Copplestone coats of arms united, as in marriage, with the Copplestone one showing… Well, showing three leopards which look like the cutest sheep out, and really ought to be sheep but apparently are strong and powerful leopards.
Sometimes I suspect the bench end carvers were having almost too much fun!
These bench ends were all made at the same time, and they are in the pre-Reformation south chapel space; presuming that they are in their original position, which is probable, this was likely a colonisation of the previous communal chapel, turning it into seating for the Stafford family, their own space, declaring their social status and social connections (high and lots according to them, in case you were wondering).
Putting a commemoration of their ancient marriages was a clear statement that they were an old Dolton family and could trace their ancestry way, way back… They were Big Boys.
Which might or might not have been vanity, but stating their gentry status also made sure they were in line for plum appointments and grants from the modern Tudor state.
Dolton Church sanctuary
As a relief from all that humans humanning the sanctuary comes to the rescue, a quiet Victorianised space with gorgeous tiles, the Ten Commandments to keep us watchful and a fine East Window.
The East Window
And what a bejewelled and bedazzled window it is, just as medieval folk loved though this is nineteenth century by Beer of Exeter.
A beautiful meditation as well, with Christ the Good Shepherd to whom every sheep counts telling the Parable of the Good Samaritan below, about every human being of equal value, and saints on either side of him.
A vision of the core of the Path of Christ
‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Matthew 22:35–40
With Christ’s Divinity well shown in the two lower side panels.
The Baptism of Christ
Here is one of them, the Baptism of Christ as the Dove of God utters blessings on the son and Johnnie the Baptiser rocks his camel-hair robe.
Ancient roof bosses
Looking up in the nave, there are some fine Late Medieval roof bosses, stained and varnished in the nineteenth century under the misunderstanding that oak needs this kind of preservation.
It does not. Keep it dry and untreated with reasonable air circulation and oak will last nearly forever.
Here this lassie seems to be a Pelican in her Piety, pecking her breast to feed her chicks with her own blood and a symbol of Christ, a very common symbol in the Middle Ages. Strangely there no chicks shown, and this is probably because the symbol was so well known that just the birdie pecking her breast was enough to bring the meaning to mind.
It is possible that this is just a random fowl peck peck pecking away, but I vote pelican.
A variety of roof bosses
There are a goodly variety of roof bosses, here a Green Man, another birdie, a dragon and a bundle of sticks, a badge of the Courtenay family of Devon who were very famous in their time.
Good stained glass
There is, as so often, plenty more fine stained glass in this church, as seen in this Adoration of the Magi by WF Dixon and it is rather good, finely drawn figures with an air or grace and calm.
Have a closer look.
The Magi
Characterful faces, beautiful background and finely drawn details.
These were made in 1874 when Dixon was twenty-seven and had not yet developed his beautiful ‘wild mystical’ style, as seen in Parracombe Christ Church, but this and other of his work here has a strong quiet charm that still attracts after all these years.
Adam and Eve
And this detail from another beauty is very of its time, yellows and golds splashing simple black lines with the ragged glass leading seemingly showing the awful breach between us humans and the Divine that those two apple munchers started.
Deadly memorials
A breach that still leads us to think of death as a curse, as Rowland Hopper takes such delight us in reminding us from 1717.
A little delight this, not so much a warning as a gentle reminder.
Lush stone carving
Though there is a classy riposte to Rowland here, a 1696 memorial to Barbara Lister, symbols of immortality above, death below, flowers blooming all over and angels fluttering wings.
The are still traces of gold on the stone, the whole would probably originally have been well coloured, a promise of life, death is never the end.
Meanings glimpsed
The coloured stone flowers now faded, Victorian stained glass steps up to the plate to offer its take on glorious plant life, roses and a grape vine, fabulously psychedelic yet with discipline and purpose.
Grapes for the wine of the Eucharist, five-petalled roses for the Virgin Mary, and at the foot of the vine, behind, could that represent a building, the temple, the Kingdom of Heaven?
Symbols, mysteries, interpretations… beauties, enchantments, wonders… from Saxon to now, the maybe of all these meanings is where we can glimpse the unexplainable…
And find our awe.
