poliphilo

The chap from the food bank (we collect for them) asked whether Quakers do Harvest Festival- and whether, therefore- he could expect an overplus of tinned goods at this time of year.

The answer is "No".

Quakers don't observe any church festivals, bloody killjoys that we are.....

Ailz and I were in Portchester yesterday, meeting up with my sister and brother-in-law. St Mary's church- which sits rather wonderfully alongside a Norman castle inside a largely intact Roman fort- is celebrating Harvest- and has hidden their amazing Romanesque font in seasonal prettyness. All very nice, but a damned nuisance for us antiquarians.

Normally I'd have photographed the thing from all angles. As it was I had to grab one or two shots where there were gaps in the prettiness.

The font is in two halves. The bottom half was pictured and recorded in the 19th century but has since gone missing. The Victorian replacement is in the right style, but the difference in colour between old and new gives the game away.

Here's a picture of the church from the outside.

Portchester sits alongside Portsmouth Harbour.

The Romans built a fort there and the Normans built a priory church and a castle inside the walls of the fort (just as they did at Pevensey- a mile or two down the road from us). Richard II converted the castle into something rather more palatial. Elizabeth I stopped by during one of her progresses and found it in an embarrassingly sordid state of disrepair. During the Napoleonic era it housed French prisoners of war- who constructed a nifty little theatre inside the keep.

Here's the keep. Grim old thing. Only respect for its antiquity prevents me from calling it ugly. And, yes, I climbed the spiral staircase all the way to the top- and walked the battlements.

Here's the gatehouse on the north side. The first picture is taken from the churchyard. The blue van serves refreshments. Note the headstones with anchors on them; this is a naval town.....