Medieval wall paintings in Gloucestershire churches: a list of the churches
included in the talk, with a note of the featured wall paintings
Ampney Crucis
North transept: early 14th-century figures of saints, including St
Helena, plus heraldic shields and fleur-de-lys in roundels.
Ampney St Mary
Nave: late 14th/early 15th- century Warning to Sabbath Breakers
(‘Christ of the Trades’), and a St George and the Dragon.
Baunton
Nave: 15th-century St Christopher.
Berkeley
Nave: 13th-century consecration cross.
Cirencester
Chancel (St Catherine’s chapel): 15th-century St Christopher.
Deerhurst
Chancel (east wall): mid to late 10th-century nimbed figure.
Duntisbourne Rouse
Chancel: early 13th-century scheme, with ‘grotesque’ heads.
Gloucester, St Mary de Crypt
Chancel (north wall): early 16th-century Adoration of the Magi.
Hailes
Chancel: early 14th-century figures of St Catherine and St
Margaret, figures of the Apostles and Death of the Virgin (?),
and heraldic devices and beasts, including several from the
medieval ‘bestiary’ and a lion, a leopard and an owl.
Nave: 14th-century St Christopher, and a hunting scene.
Kempley, St Mary
Chancel: 12th-century scheme showing (on the vault) Christ in
Majesty flanked by the symbols of the Evangelists, seraphim and
figures of St Peter and the Virgin Mary, with (on the walls) the
Apostles, two ‘pilgrims’, a bishop, representations of Heavenly
Jerusalem and angels with scrolls.
Nave: Continuation of the 12th-century scheme, including St
John and the Three Marys; 15th-century Wheel of Life,
figures of St Anthony, St Michael weighing souls and three
knights, probably from a martyrdom of St Thomas Becket.
Mitcheldean
Nave (above chancel arch): 15th-century Last Judgement or
‘Doom’, on wooden panels.
Oddington, St Nicholas
Nave (north wall): early 15th-century ‘Doom’, plus a painting of
c.1520, probably representing either the Seven Acts of Mercy
and the Seven Deadly Sins or characters from a morality play.
Shorncote
Chancel : 13th-century masonry patterns and rosettes.
Stoke Orchard
Nave: 13th-century cycle of the life and miracles of St James.
Stowell
Nave (north wall): lower half of a late 12th-/early 13th-century
‘Doom’, showing the Virgin Mary and Apostles, with a ‘sifting
of souls’ and a combat scene below.
South transept: late 12th-/early 13th-century martyrdoms of St
Margaret and St Lawrence.
Tewkesbury Abbey
Trinity chapel (chantry of Edward le Despenser): 14th-century
Trinity, with donors, and the remains of a Coronation of the
Virgin below.
Winterbourne
Tower arch: 14th-century heraldic scheme, showing Sir
Thomas Bradeston (d.1360).
Other churches with remains of medieval wall-paintings, or painted stonework, not
included in the talk: Bishops Cleeve, Bledington, Buckland, Down Ampney, Fairford,
Great Washbourne, Notgrove, Oxenton, Stanton, Turkdean. The Parliament Room at
Gloucester has a 15th-century painting of the Trinity, from Little Cloister House.
Churches with Post-Reformation wall-paintings include: Berkeley (crowned Tudor
rose), Salperton (‘Memento Mori’), Teddington (Royal coat of arms, 1689), Yanworth
(‘Memento Mori’). Other churches have the remains of black & white texts.
Further reading:
Babington, C., Manning, T., and Stewart, S., Our Painted Past. Wall Paintings of English
Heritage (English Heritage, London, 1991).
Hobart Bird, W., The Ancient Mural Paintings in the Churches of Gloucestershire
(Gloucester, 1927).
Rosewell, Roger, Medieval Wall Paintings in English & Welsh Churches (Boydell Press,
Woodbridge, 2008).
Rouse, E. Clive, English Medieval Wall Paintings (Shire Publications Ltd., Princes
Risborough, 1991).
Tristram, E.W., English Medieval Wall Paintings (12th to 14th century, in 4 volumes,
1944-55).
Verey, D., and Brooks, A., The Buildings of England: Gloucestershire (2 volumes, 1999
and 2002).
Articles about Gloucestershire’s medieval wall paintings are included in the Transactions
of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society for 1948 (Ampney St Mary),
1981 (Hailes), 1984 (Stowell), 1986 (Oddington) and 2000 (Ampney Crucis), in the
Archaeological Journal for 1967 (Stoke Orchard) and the Antiquaries Journal for 2006
(Deerhurst). A useful website, maintained by Ann Marshall of the Open University, is
www.paintedchurch.org.