The Church of St Mary and St David is a Church of England parish church at Kilpeck in the English county of Herefordshire, about 5 miles from the border with Monmouthshire, Wales. Pevsner describes Kilpeck as "one of the most perfect Norman churches in England". Famous for its stone carvings, the church is a Grade I listed building.
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.
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 sloughing of its skin. The inner right column shows birds; at the top of the right columns is a 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 mythical and actual birds and beasts. The semicircular tympanum depicts a tree of life. Two green men appear as capitals on the richly decorated columns of the west window. In the centre of the corbel table below the window, and at each corner of the nave's west wall, are large protruding dragons' heads with coiled tongues.
Inside, the chancel arch is also richly carved, though far less spectacular than the south doorway. Its carved figures are said to have been inspired by those on the "Puerta de las Platerias" at Santiago de Compostela. The ceiling boss or keystone of the apse depicts four lions' heads. There is a massive baptismal font of polished conglomerate, a curious holy water stoup, shaped like a fat, tightly girdled torso, and a rare Romanesque font-stopper. Jenkins suggests that the stoup represents a woman in pregnancy.
The Pye family were once based in Much Dewchurch, where several are buried in the church. They were a large family of great renown, both in UK, and abroad.
Research shows that most Pyes are descended from, or named from, the family started by Hugh fitz William, Fitz Norman de LaMare, who is mentioned in the Breton Charter dated 1030. The genealogy of Hugh is somewhat of a puzzle. It was after their Kilpeck days that the name Pye came about.
William fitz Norman was son or grandson of the Viking forebear Fitz Thorir Thobard, and was granted the fiefdom of Maera in Normandy. He is recorded as being alive in 1114. He served under William the Conqueror and consequently was given extensive holdings in Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, including the castle of Kilpeck. He became Baron of Kilpeck in Archinfild and built Kilpeck Castle and Kilpeck Church (Was this a previous one to the current one?).
Hugh was born in 1076, probably not a son/grandson of William I as has previously been thought, but related somewhere back in time.
Legend has it that Hugh, when on crusade (1095/1099), was captured by the Saracen Chieftain, the Emir Mohammed (Amiraud). He had a child by the Emir’s daughter, and by her had a daughter who arranged his escape. On his return to England he married Meirig, a Welsh princess, the daughter of King Griffin ap Meredith ap Cynvyn of Archinfild, receiving Saddlebow as his dower (King Griffin is mentioned in the Herefordshire Domesday, dying in 1128. King Meredith had owned the Kilpeck (Chipeete) area before the conquest).
In thanks for his deliverance Hugh built, or perhaps rebuilt, Kilpeck church, and in 1134 gave it as a thanksgiving to the Monastery of St Peter at Gloucester (This date is well substantiated). He had three sons, Thomas, Henry and John. On his death in 1171, he was succeeded by his elder son, Henry, who on his death in 1196, was followed by John who served on the 2nd crusade 1190-1193. King John called him “ The Greatest Knight in Christendom.”
During the time of Herewald, one of the 27 churches in Ergyng included Lian Deui Cilpedec, which was consecrated during the time that William Fitz Osbern was Earl in Herefordshire between 1067 and 1071. (The castle was possibly constructed in wood in about 1090) It is presumed that this post-dated in 640 and therefore have been of Saxon origins. Morcenau was inducted as priest, and after his death a son Enniaun was ordained in the days of Catgen Ddu, who, according to the domesday book survey, held Kilpeck before 1066.
There is no reference in the library at Aberystwyth to a church of St David connected with the great welsh saint, and it is generally assumed now that it was a local saint.
8 сен 2024
