Solving an ancient mystery

Look carefully at some of Shropshire’s oldest churches and you’ll find grotesquely erotic stone carvings on their walls. Why are they there? Who made them? And what do they mean? Sophie Bignall has been investigating.

Perched high above the nave, more pagan than Christian, she precariously displays her private parts while guarding the door of a Norman church in the heart of rural Shropshire.

Thankfully, perhaps, many of the parishioners at St Laurence’s in Church Stretton do not notice the “Sheela na Gig”, an ancient carved fertility symbol which sits on the north side of the 14th-Century church.

According to the nationwide Sheela na Gig Project, the Shropshire area is a hotbed for these quasi-erotic stone carvings of female figures.

Spokesman John Harding says all the evidence points to them being Norman, dating from a time when William the Conqueror’s men were stationed along the Welsh border protecting their lands.

“The theory is that it was a indication of high status. Many of the Norman churches were incorporated into castles and landowners’ estates. Predominantly we find them in areas of Norman influence,” he explains.

“Carvings were very expensive, so the landowner would commission the carvings. It was like the Lamborghini of the 12th Century.”

Although others claim the ancient carved symbol is a remnant of Saxon Stretton and represents the goddess of fertility in British-Celtic mythology, Mr Harding insists the symbols are more likely to have originally been a warning against the sin of lust, before gradually mutating into a protective force against demons.

“In modern times, the Sheela na Gig has become a pagan symbol,” he says.

Some say these grotesque, revealing carvings were an attempt to allay the power of death, often portrayed as a female demon dramatically positioned in a prominent location to ward off evil. Another theory insists they were some sort medieval stonemason’s joke and were meant to be grotesque and shocking.

Says Mr Harding: “If that was the case, it was a remarkably consistent stonemason’s joke. Many of the carvings themselves are repeated a lot.”

The project has identified Sheelas at nearby Tugford and Holdgate Churches, and St Mary’s Church in Cleobury Mortimer. The church at Diddlebury is also said to have a Sheela, but the carving is so weathered it is difficult to be sure.

Sheelas have also appeared across the border in Llanbadarn Fynydd and at Llandrindod Wells, where the carving is beautifully preserved because it was buried face down in the wall of the local parish church for many years.

The project has spent a number of years attempting to collate as much information as possible on the ancient carvings in the United Kingdom, and an unusual “cluster” of Sheelas has been identified in Shropshire and neighbouring counties.

Whereas there seems to be plenty of data on Irish figures, figures in the UK and on the Continent are often overlooked.

The project’s website aims to address the balance by listing all known figures in the UK, complete with photographs. It also includes information on figures from the continent.

Two figures can be found inside St Catherine’s Church in Tugford, on either side of the main door. At Holdgate the church is quite old and fairly decrepit, although it is still in use, and the comparatively large Sheela can be found on the south-facing wall of the church, over a small doorway.

Cleobury Mortimer boasts its own seated Sheela, with bent arms set in the retaining wall of the churchyard of St Mary’s, facing directly on to the main road through the town.

Cleobury Mortimer historian Dr Mark Baldwin says the carving is so worn that it is getting more and more difficult to identify any features.

It is also clear that many of the Sheelas, including the one at Church Stretton, have been taken from much older buildings.

Experts claim they were once more abundant in Norman Britain, but have now become something of a rarity in this country, because puritans and prudish Victorians either destroyed the carvings or buried them deep in the churchyard.

Even the Stretton Sheela, as she is fondly known, has been a victim of puritanism. A small stone has been placed in the space depicting her private parts, in an effort to make the figure a little less crude.

Reverend for Cleobury Mortimer, Ashley Buck, says: “The truth is that nobody really knows what it is all about. There are thoughts that it is a pagan or a fertility symbol and of course paganism was invented in the 19th Century. We know that people in the Middle Ages had a taste for the grotesque, you tend to get all that stuff in medieval manuscripts.”

Commenting on Mr Harding’s theory that the carvings date back to Norman times, he adds: “It makes perfect sense with this one, it is not on its original site. It was found above the church on the site of a little Norman castle.”