Siston Court

historybuff, on October 12, 2008, said:

Siston Court built in 1598, opposite St Anne's Church. There is a local story that Cromwell left his boots behind at nearby Siston Court. For centuries they stood on a mantelpiece, only vanishing sometime in the 1950s. Ranulph Fiennes, the intrepid explorer of both Arctic and Antarctic poles.

It is a little known fact that Ranulph Fiennes is related to the Trotman family who lived at Siston Court about the time of the English Civil War.

Siston's somewhat tucked-away church of St Ann, not far from Puckelchurch, is something of a gem. Normally kept locked between services, it's been open to interested members of the public on Sunday afternoons for the past four weeks and has, according to the vicar, attracted quite a crowd. Built not far up the hillside from St Ann's Well, possibly a pagan place of worship, the church has Saxon foundations, as can be seen from the base of its ancient font.

The pinnacled tower dates from the 13th or 14th century but the first thing that catches your eye on entering the south porch is the fine Norman doorway, surely as good as, if not finer, than anything you will discover in the Cotswolds, which seems to have a plethora of them. The shaft has scalloped capitals and the carved outer moulding has a characteristic dog tooth pattern. But the tympanum of the round arch - into which is carved a design representing the Tree of Life, its stiff little branches each with a trefoil leaf and surrounded by rope-like patterns - surely make this something exceptional.

Also inside the wonderfully preserved and immensely thick porch can be seen a stone, now chopped away to the level of the wall. This is all that remains of an ancient stoop, or holy water container, believed to have been damaged by Cromwellian troops who were billeted in the church on their way to the Battle of Lansdown in 1642. Yet another of St Ann's treasures is a lead font of Norman work, a rarity and one of only nine in the whole county of Gloucestershire (six were seemingly cast from the same mould). Full of intricate detail, it shows six figures, three pairs repeated, with Christ as Judge and Saviour. A copy can be studied in detail on the church wall.

Then, coming as a complete surprise, and a feast for the eyes once you fully enter the church, are the paintings on the walls - above the chancel and elsewhere - painted on canvas by a Mrs Rawlins and her daughter, who lived across the road at Elizabethan Siston Court in Edwardian times. Some of the pictures are from panels designed by Burne-Jones and there is a group of kneeling angels copied from frescoes in Florence's Palazzo Ricardi. The rest, all in wonderful colours, show child musicians, adoring angels and a wealth of flowers.

Don't miss the old Bible and the oak Jabobean pulpit plus, either side of the altar, two large brass seven branched candlesticks which were presented to the church by Mr Rawlings as a memorial to his nephew. Before you leave take a look around the churchyard and try to spot the richly engraved stone, a memorial to 23 year old Mary Tucker, who died 200 years ago. It show Father Time holding an hour glass (the grains of which have run out) standing next to a figure re[presenting Death, which is hurling a dart of some kind at a young woman (a possibly pregnant Mary?) on the ground.

Whether there is some kind of morality tale depicted here I'll leave you to try and work out.

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