It will be noticed how plain is the plan of the Norman piers
(see illustration, p. 37). They have no capital, only a projecting
course of brickwork from which the arch springs. The two easternmost
piers, however, were altered at some time (see illustration, p. 39), and
a rough kind of capital formed by cutting away the pier below. The
Norman piers were first covered with plaster, and then painted both on
their western and southern faces, and when the white-wash with which
they had been covered in post-Reformation days was removed in 1862, the
frescoes were discovered in a more or less perfect condition. All those
on the western faces with one exception, represent the same subject, the
Crucifixion, with a second subject below. No doubt against these piers
altars used to stand, and these frescoes served, as we should say, as
painted reredoses or altarpieces.
The subjects are as follows, beginning at the west of the Norman arcade:
First pier, west face. Christ on the Cross, crowned; the Virgin on
the north side, St. John on the south, holding a book. Beneath,
Virgin (crowned and holding a sceptre) and Child; on each side an
angel censing. Late twelfth or early thirteenth century.
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