History
The church was built around 1140, and almost certainly before 1143 when it was given to the Gloucester Abbey, Abbey of Gloucester. It may have replaced an earlier Anglo-Saxons, Saxon church at the same site, and the oval raised form of the churchyard is typical of even older Celtic Christianity, Celtic foundations. Around the 6th and 7th centuries the Kilpeck (Welsh:''Llanddewi Cil Peddeg'') area was within the Britons (historic), British kingdom of Ergyng, which maintained Christian traditions dating back to the late Roman Empire, Roman period. The possibility of the site holding Roman and even megalithic remains has been raised, but is unproven.James Bailey, ''The Parish Church of St Mary and St David at Kilpeck'', 2000 The plan of the church, with a nave, chancel, and semicircular apse, is typical for the time of its construction, the Norman architecture, Norman period. It was originally dedicated to a St David, probably a local Celtic Christianity, Celtic holy man, and later acquired an additional dedication to Mary (mother of Jesus), Mary from the chapel at Kilpeck Castle after it had fallen into disrepair. At the time the current church was built, the area around Kilpeck, known as Archenfield, was relatively prosperous and strategically important, in the heart of the Welsh Marches. The economic decline of the area after the 14th century may have helped preserve features which would have been removed elsewhere. However, it is unclear why the carvings were not defaced by Puritans in the 17th century. The church was substantially repaired in 1864, 1898 and 1962, and its unique features were protected and maintained. Pevsner describes the Victorian restorations, firstly by Lewis Nockalls Cottingham and latterly by John Pollard Seddon as "competent [and] disciplined".Architecture and carvings
The carvings in the local red sandstone are remarkable for their number and their fine state of preservation, particularly round the south door, the west window, and along a row of corbels which run right around the exterior of the church under the eaves. The carvings are all original and in their original positions. They have been attributed to a Herefordshire School of stonemasons, probably local but who may have been instructed by master masons recruited in France by Oliver de Merlimond. He was steward to the Lord of Wigmore, Herefordshire, Wigmore, Hugh Mortimer, who went on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain and, on his return, built a church with similar Romanesque architecture, Romanesque carvings (now largely lost) at Shobdon, 30 miles north of Kilpeck. Hugh de Kilpeck, a relative of Earl Mortimer, employed the same builders at Kilpeck, and their work is also known at Leominster, Rowlestone and elsewhere. The writer Simon Jenkins notes the influences of churches found on the Christian pilgrimage, pilgrimage routes of Northern Europe. The south door has double columns. The outer columns have carvings of a series of snakes, heads swallowing tails. In common with most of the other carvings, the meaning of these is unclear, but they may represent rebirth via the snake's seasonal Snake#Skin, sloughing of its skin. The inner right column shows birds in foliage; at the top of the right columns is a Green Man, green man. The inner left column has two warriors who, unusually, are in loose trousers. The outer sections of the arch above the doorway show creatures which can be interpreted as a manticore and a basilisk, and various other mythology, mythical and actual birds and beasts. The semicircular tympanum (architecture), tympanum depicts a tree of life.Churchyard
The churchyard contains the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, war grave of a World War II King's Shropshire Light Infantry officer, west of the church.In literature
The church is the subject of the short story ''Sheela-na-Gig'' by British poet, novelist and filmmaker B. S. Johnson. Jeff Nuttall, in his 1954 unpublished Masters thesis, ''The Church of St. Mary & St. David Kilpeck'', concluded that: "My intended detachment was completely destroyed. The building refused to be seen as an arrangement in stone, as the key to a time and a tradition, or as a piece in the jig-saw puzzle of art history. It stood unavoidably as a work of art, the timeless expression of a vision experienced under that same sun which now winked at me through the deep yew tree."References
Sources
* Bailey, James. ''The parish church of St Mary and St David at Kilpeck.'' 2000. A booklet, available within the church, that describes the church. No publisher is specified. * * * Lewis, G[eorge] R. "Illustrations of Kilpeck church, Herefordshire." 1979. Pamphlet derived from a book of 1842.Further reading
External links