A North Oxfordshire Speciality

St Mary, Adderbury has two highly decorated pillars, one on the south side of the building, at the transition from aisle to transept and the other in a similar position to the north. The southern one has a capital showing four knights with their arms linked, so...



and the one to the north has ladies...



This style of capital is a north Oxfordshire speciality. There's a single example at Bloxham, while Hanwell has a complete set- with every column in the arcades displaying one. There may be others but, if so, I haven't come across them yet- and I don't think they occur anywhere else in the country. Presumably we're looking at the work of a single local mason or group of masons. Pity we can't put a name to them. Pity the idea didn't catch on....

More Of The Same

While we're on the subject here's the pillar at Bloxham I mentioned in the last post. Bloxham is just down the road from Adderbury.

Where the iconography at Adderbury is quite straightforward- four knights, four ladies- here it's complex- The figures are knight, lady, king and peasant- and there's lots of stuff going on around them- some of it hard to read. The knight, visible in both these images, has a shield and lance with pennon, both marked with a cross. Does this make him a crusader?





Finally, here's one of the capitals from Hanwell- where, as at Adderbury, the sexes are segregated...



The characters at Bloxham and the knights at Adderbury have their arms linked (the Adderbury ladies don't have arms). At Hanwell all the people lean forwards, arms braced- as if pushing themselves out through a window.