Quenington Parish Church



St. Swithin's Church
Photos by
John Wilkes of Cam
near Dursley, Gloucestershire
The Gloucestershire
Photo Library
:


Page composition by
Allan Taylor of Vancouver, Canada
http://www.allthecotswolds.com

Quenington church has early Norman sculptured doorways. The village is set in rolling beechwooded country on the banks of the river Coln.
The church at Quenington is unique in that it retains two elaborately enriched Romanesque doorways, both works of art of the greatest interest. Their date is circa 1150.
This page shows the full height of the south doorway, arch and tympanum; and a detail of the north door and its carved stone tympanum.
The tympanum over the south doorway shows the rare subject of the 'Coronation of the Virgin'. Witnesses of the Coronation are two seraphs, a heavenly mansion and the Evangelist's symbolic beasts.The inner arch has chevrons at right angles; The next order is that of beakheads. Round the roll of the arch they are mostly animals but down the jamb shafts they become extremely stylized clasping tongues. The outer jambs have large marguerite flowers.
The north doorway, which in present times acts as the main entrance to the church, is even more overwhelming in its elaboration, with at least four orders of zig-zag chevron moulding which continue down the jambs of the doorway. Farther out is a band of limpet shells.
The abaci are carved with star, cable, knot and billet mouldings, and the capitals with jacks-in-the-green symbols of fertility. The tympanum shows the 'Harrowing of Hell' with Christ apparently prodding Satan, who lies on the ground. There are other figures, who are naked, two representing the Jews said to have risen from the dead with Christ and a third figure who is half in the devil's mouth. Above is a Sun disk with a face on it. Above all is a much-weathered and unrecognisable grotesque head