Painswick And Church, 1

After the Rococo Garden we drove into Painswick, the gateway to the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds stretch across five counties, as everyone knows, 800 square miles, known for its honey colored Jurassic limestone (but no dinosaurs) and for its postcard-pretty little villages, etc. Actually, Painswick was one of the nicer ones. 

Helpful map

Always read the fine print

Specimen Cotswold prettiness

Now we are in the churchyard of St. Mary's, Painswick's
parish (Anglican) church, with its--legend says--99 sculptured
yew trees; legend has it that if one were to plant a 100th tree,
the Devil would kill it; a 100th tree was planted in 2000 and
continues to flourish; the current count is 103

Really big cemetery

"Bring us a leaning shrubbery"

Theft-proof yew tree

In Painswick we learned that these are called "table-top" tombs...
designed for family cemetery picnics 

Helpful map of churchyard

Must be its age...

Nave; very wool-churchery, though lacking in some 

characteristic Cotswold respects, e.g., a glazed arch over

the chancel; look here for an example

Nice interpretive signage

Not much in the way of sculpture; there were some apparent
funny faces on the corbels outside, but they were mostly 
melted away, as happens with outdoor limestone

Organ pipes

Interim Update #1,294

For those keeping score at home, we are now in London, for three weeks, at our favored apartment in Pimlico, a mile or so up the river from the Houses of Parliament. See illustration. The blog is still in the West, I know, tarrying, yet to visit Wales, and later back all the way to Kent, and places in between. We'll get there, eventually...I promise...but there is much to see in London, even for old veterans.

From our apartment, magnified a bit and cropped...

  

Rococo My World At The Painswick Rococo Garden

Perhaps it was the novelty of the thing, or a desire to do something new...Rococo is not our thing, nor is its parent Baroque...or maybe it was just curiosity...and Chat-GPT said it was a great garden and worth the entrance fee*...but we elected to visit the Painswick Rococo Garden and to make a day of Painswick and the nearby Newark Park house and estate. Each warrants a brief post.

Rococo is Baroque on steroids, some say. Think ornate, over the top, rich people in fancy dress enjoying themselves in the paradisical gardens of their 18th century day; while the masses starved. Fragonard. Watteau. After us, the Deluge. How that translates into a garden is still unclear to me, but we saw one and perhaps you can figure it out from the pix below.**

Plan of the place; the great house is not part of the deal

The Red House, among the 3-4 follies

As it turns out, the garden is almost entirely fruits and veggies, very
little ornamental or decorative...not even close to the top, much less
over it...

Apples and pears, espaliered

Peas

Ample interpretive information; there is a textbook definition of
rococo in the garden pamphlet, but little information on how this
get expressed on the ground

Lettuce, cabbage, broccoli being protected from insects

Did I mention it's mostly an edible garden?

Another folly

Cold plunge pool; seriously; spring-fed

Pond and boat

Arbor...nicer if flowering

Impressive stump sculpture

Vicki wants a memorial bench, only it has to be wrought iron and 
art nouveau

Hermitage...in Montana we might have called this a war lodge

Rococo bees

Great house; not open to the public

Fragonard's The Swing, arguably the greatest of Rococo
paintings; I suggest Painswick install a swing somewhere on 
the premises and maybe add a dress-up room as well; charge 
extra, of course

*Chat-GPT can make mistakes...
**If you do, please explain to me...

Glouceter Cathedral, 2026, Part The Second

Continuing our visit to Gloucester Cathedral...

Later in the visit, I took the elevated perambulatory...

Which is where they keep the dress-up stuff

His Holiness, Bishop Mark

And more of the interpretive stuff

Closer-up view of Pope Clement

Close quarters in the perambulatory

A Saxon sculpture of JC 

Pigeon-view of east window

More interpretive stuff, including the apparent "golfer"

Descent

Graffiti 

Now in the quire (choir), exquisitely carved, as usual...but, in this
extraordinary case, all 46 of the misericords were open and accessible...
not quite the lurid and lewd versions we prefer, but pretty good
nonetheless

Dragon back-biting?

Futbol?

Driving for a lay-up?

14th century English wood-carver's impression of what an elephant
must look like

Still processing

King perhaps not getting the best advice?

Among the more colorful chapels...great cathedral!