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Little Witchingham, Norfolk, (CCT*) Passion Cycle, C14

Details and links to individual scenes below
Lt. Witchingham, North Wall [63KB]
Photo:T.Marshall
The Passion Cycle and other scenes - a row of Apostles at the top of the wall and a very large but much damaged St. George and the Dragon on the far right, to the left of the window - are on the north wall.
The paintings here are masterly. They were discovered by the conservator and restorer Eve Baker (who is said to have climbed through a window to get in) when the church was virtually derelict in 1967. Unfortunately only a few scenes are really decipherable now. The central tier has the clearest, and it begins at the west end (left) of the church with one or possibly two scenes, both very obscure and not shown here, which may be the Arrest in Gethsamene and the Agony in the Garden. The clearer scenes begin with the Flagellation (over the North Door shown in the picture above) combined with the Little Witchingham, Passion Cycle, FlagellationBuffeting and shown in the detail at the right. Christ seems to be the central figure here, and he is probably standing in front of the Pillar of the Scourging while torturers variously scourge him (the figure at the left is poised on one leg in the act of wielding a scourge) and press down the Crown of Thorns with clubs or staves, a detail sometimes seem in manuscript painting and the art of the Northern Renaissance.

The next scenes to the right are very fragmentary, but immediately right, after Christ before Caiaphas is probably the Road to Calvary; the one to the right of that must have been the Crucifixion and the remains of another scene, unidentifiable now.
Christ Before Caiaphas and the Deposition, with the much clearer if fragmentary scenes of later events in the Cycle are pictured and discussed on the next page. Click the link below.

From Caiaphas to the Deposition

*CCT=The Churches Conservation Trust, successor to the Redundant Churches Fund

Website for St Faiths church

Amberley, Sussex Belchamp Walter, Essex Brook, Kent Chalgrove, Oxfordshire NEW Crostwight, Norfolk Croughton, Northamptonshire Fairstead, Essex
Flamstead, Herts Ford, Sussex NEW Great Tew, Oxon Gussage St. Andrew, Dorset Ickleton, Cambs Little Easton, Essex Little Tey, Essex
Little Witchingham, Norfolk North Cove, Suffolk North Stoke, Oxfordshire NEW Peakirk,Northants Pickering, N. Yorks Pinvin, Worcs Seething, Norfolk
South Newington, Oxfordshire West Chiltington, Sussex Wissington, Suffolk

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18/12/00

© Anne Marshall 2000