Ancient Viking and Norman carvings

 

This evening, the focus of my blog is on the historic Church of St. Mary the Virgin at Alne, Yorkshire, England and in particular the ancient Viking and Norman carvings which attract a lot of visitor interest.

There has been a church on this site for about 850 years. The current church has many interesting facets but I am going to focus on just three which are discussed and illustrated below.

Firstly, there is the massive 12th century stone font which is still used for baptisms. This close up shows the classic Green Man image which may relate to a pre-Christian natural deity. Note the branches or vines sprouting from the mouth.

Here is the font.

This image shows shows a lintel over a Anglo-Saxon era priests door. The well worn carving may well be from the Viking era.
Finally, the video clip below shows the Norman era carved arch over the main door. This is very significant and attracts many visitors. The carvings represent beasts from the Bible although there are also some secular ones.


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