St Botolph, Hardham
Aug. 9th, 2018 08:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloWe followed the signpost to Hardham Church Farm and wound up in a farmyard where a man sitting in the cab of his tractor told us we'd missed the turning and if we went back down the track we'd see the church across the fields to our left. "It's worth seeing," he said.
And so it is.
St Botolph, Hardham has a nearly complete set of early medieval murals- including the earliest paintings of St George anywhere in England. The building is probably pre-Conquest (dating things in the early medieval period is largely a matter of informed guesswork) and the murals were painted around 1100 by artists known as "The Lewes School"- because they may have worked (informed guesswork again) under the direction of the Prior of Lewes. Their work survives in three other local churches- Coombes, Clayton and Plumpton.
And so it is.
St Botolph, Hardham has a nearly complete set of early medieval murals- including the earliest paintings of St George anywhere in England. The building is probably pre-Conquest (dating things in the early medieval period is largely a matter of informed guesswork) and the murals were painted around 1100 by artists known as "The Lewes School"- because they may have worked (informed guesswork again) under the direction of the Prior of Lewes. Their work survives in three other local churches- Coombes, Clayton and Plumpton.
