Yelling

Holy Cross, locked no keyholder,  is a pleasant enough building [I see from my pictures] in the heart of the village but has left absolutely no lasting impression or, indeed, memories. Perhaps if it had been open it may have been more memorable - who knows?

HOLY CROSS. Of brown cobbles. The three-bay N arcade is of c.1190, i.e. the piers are round, but the abaci square and the capitals still of the multi-scalloped kind, but the arches, though unmoulded, are pointed. The S arcade of four bays with standard elements (but broaches at the start of the arches) looks c.1300. So do the S aisle windows (Y-tracery, still geometrical tracery with a quatrefoil and a trefoil in a circle) and S doorway (two continuous chamfers). A plain, low tomb recess in the aisle wall inside. Again, the chancel is of c.1300 or has work of that date. The SEDILIA fit it, but the chancel arch looks a little later. Late C14 W tower, but still with Dec bell-openings. The tower had a spire up to the C19. Most of the rest is Perp.

YELLING. It is quiet in spite of its name (which was originally Ghellinge), with a thatched barn and a church that have been friends for centuries. The Normans gave the church its north arcade, with two big piers like the Pillars of Hercules, their capitals finely carved. There is a very old font. The south aisle (which has an old sundial) and the arcade are two centuries later, and the stone coffin built into the south wall, with a cross on the lid, is probably that of the benefactor who added them. Two heads with mouths wide open in the chancel are perhaps old gargoyles misplaced inside the church at some restoration, and are not the medieval mason’s little joke on the name of the village. It is recorded that a Sheriff of the county living at Yelling fell fighting against the Conqueror at Hastings.

Flickr.