ST MARGARET. How many people realize that Fletton has not only a national but an intemational claim to be visited? Its ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS, even admitting that some are closely linked with Breedon in Leicestershire and others with the Hedda Stone in Peterborough Cathedral, are startling in style, and have no parallel in earlier or late Anglo-Saxon art, and none in contemporary Continental art. Their date, thanks to Breedon, is certain: the first half of the C9, i.e. the time of Charlemagne and his immediate successors. As they are discoloured pink by fire it is quite likely that they come from Anglo-Saxon Peterborough Abbey, which had a conflagration in 1116. The remains are small in scale, minute, one might well say, and their original position and purpose remain a mystery, as do those of the Breedon pieces. They are now built into the E buttresses of the church, and most of them must have belonged to a frieze or friezes. Only one has human figures - three heads under arches, just like the figures on the Hedda Stone. But at Fletton the whole fragment is a mere 18 in. wide. The others, as at Breedon, are omamented with weird little birds and quadrupeds, and they are scooped out in a peculiar technique so that just the ridges remain. The style is lively, even humorous, and not really primitive at all. They are not great sculpture, like the Ruthwell and Bewcastle Crosses well over a hundred years earlier, but they are done by someone who knew exactly what he wanted to do and found his means to achieve it. The two panels with saints inside the church, though generally considered part of the same scheme, are more likely Norman and come quite close to French sculpture of the early C12. They are precise in their carving, whereas the Anglo-Saxon artist modelled softly, as though in clay.*
Now for the church itself. The N arcade, chancel arch, and N chapel arcade came first. They are of about 1160. The N arcade originally had four bays, but one pier was removed at some time and a wide arch introduced. The remaining piers are sound and sturdy, with square abaci nicked at the corners and round arches with two very slight chamfers. The chancel arch received its pointed form later. All capitals are multi-scalloped. 1160 is a date that might also suit the two panels referred to. The chancel was Norman too, as is shown by the corbel-table, one blocked S window, and the buttressing. The present S windows are Dec. The S arcade is probably early C14. The thin octagonal piers carry capitals with polygonal projections which do not seem to fit (but cf. Stanground and Orton Longueville). Back to the end of the C13 with the S aisle W and E and the N aisle W window, all with three lancet-lights under one arch. Other S aisle and the clerestory windows rnust be C17. The N aisle dates from 1899. Again late C13 the W tower with Y-traceried bell-openings. Broach spire with high broaches and two tiers of lucarnes. - FONT. Probably of c.1661-2. Octagonal, of plain panels, four of them just vertically fluted. - CROSS. In the churchyard an Anglo-Saxon Cross. The shaft has the familiar two handles. The cross-head is of the wheel type. On the sides roundels with a quadruped, on the E face also a larger animal (Agnus Dei?). The inscription is in Norman lettering. It reads Radulph Filius Wilielmi. Maybe the cross was appropriated to his memory. Recently Mr Clive L. George has discovered two more fragments of the cross.
* Until c.1900 they also were outside.
FLETTON. Its story goes back to the Romans and its visible monuments go back half as far in time. It looks across to Peterborough with its noble towers, but it has a glory of its own, something left of the first Saxon church built here by men who would see the ruins of the last Roman house. They built their new village, now a town, on the site of one the Romans left, and marvellous is the Saxon work still to be seen. The carved buttresses of Fletton church are a rare and beautiful landmark in any tour of Saxon England.
There stands near the church a cross on which a Norman mason must have amused himself one day, and we must all be thankful for the idea that came into his mind, for he took his chisel and made us a little stone picture of the tiger and the mirror, a fascinating conception in heraldry which we come upon only two or three times in all England, once in a Kent village and once in Salisbury Cathedral. he idea is that the hunters who had carried off a tiger’s cubs threw down a mirror in which the tiger saw its reflection and, imagining the reflection to be its cub, stopped and enabled the hunters to escape. This rare little carving, perhaps the oldest example of this legend, is on a quaint cross made about 1180 against the foot of Fletton tower.
But the Norman mason is far outdone in achievement by the Saxons, and the Normans recognised the beauty of the Saxon work, giving it prominence in the two buttresses they built on the chancel wall. Sun and wind and rain have fallen on them for a thousand years yet these sculptures are works of art still, some wearing away but some in remarkable preservation, among the most attractive of our Saxon monuments. There are men and beasts and graceful designs of many kinds. A row of three saints under arches with carved spandrels is vanishing, but the elegant scrollwork above them is in fine preservation, and on one face of a buttress is a saint holding a palm, set in a most beautifully decorated panel. Inside the chancel are two Saxon sculptures on the wall one an angel with a flowered stafl and one holding a scroll.
It would seem that these figures have been reddened by burning. They are all carved in yellow Ketton stone, and it is thought they may have been the work of a craftsman as far back as the 8th century.
This fascinating place, a complete epitome of English church architecture (Saxon, Norman, Transitional, and Gothic), stands among noble limes and has Norman arcades in the nave and the chancel. The tower has been here 600 years, but its spire is of our time. One of the benches has 15th century carving on it, and there is a graceful 16th century font with a panelled and fluted bowl.
There stands near the church a cross on which a Norman mason must have amused himself one day, and we must all be thankful for the idea that came into his mind, for he took his chisel and made us a little stone picture of the tiger and the mirror, a fascinating conception in heraldry which we come upon only two or three times in all England, once in a Kent village and once in Salisbury Cathedral. he idea is that the hunters who had carried off a tiger’s cubs threw down a mirror in which the tiger saw its reflection and, imagining the reflection to be its cub, stopped and enabled the hunters to escape. This rare little carving, perhaps the oldest example of this legend, is on a quaint cross made about 1180 against the foot of Fletton tower.
But the Norman mason is far outdone in achievement by the Saxons, and the Normans recognised the beauty of the Saxon work, giving it prominence in the two buttresses they built on the chancel wall. Sun and wind and rain have fallen on them for a thousand years yet these sculptures are works of art still, some wearing away but some in remarkable preservation, among the most attractive of our Saxon monuments. There are men and beasts and graceful designs of many kinds. A row of three saints under arches with carved spandrels is vanishing, but the elegant scrollwork above them is in fine preservation, and on one face of a buttress is a saint holding a palm, set in a most beautifully decorated panel. Inside the chancel are two Saxon sculptures on the wall one an angel with a flowered stafl and one holding a scroll.
It would seem that these figures have been reddened by burning. They are all carved in yellow Ketton stone, and it is thought they may have been the work of a craftsman as far back as the 8th century.
This fascinating place, a complete epitome of English church architecture (Saxon, Norman, Transitional, and Gothic), stands among noble limes and has Norman arcades in the nave and the chancel. The tower has been here 600 years, but its spire is of our time. One of the benches has 15th century carving on it, and there is a graceful 16th century font with a panelled and fluted bowl.
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