St Mark's Church, Easton
The church has a great nest of gargoyles on the top
They're a rum bunch, aren't they?
This is what Ben Tillett (born Easton 1860) said about St Mark's:
Those of my readers who have passed through Stapleton Road Station will perhaps remember that church on the right on their way to Wales from London. There is a square tower to the church, and on each corner of it there are creeping reptiles and gargoyles with menacing countenance, and a ferocious snarl on their ugly mouths. They were always a wonder and a terror to me. What were they doing there? I could not understand that some demented architect had borrowed the beastly shapes church of medieval lore, or that perverted brains had fashioned the horrible shapes in hate or fear. My only consolation was the thought that they were well fastened down.
Once, at a lesson given by a flighty-brained teacher, I asked her what the animals at the top of the church meant. The alarming news was instantly vouchedsafe that the beasts were to watch the four quarters of the earth against the devils and enemies of Christians, to pounce upon them, rend them, and thus they remained everlastingly on the watch. "Would they eat them up. teacher?" This timid interrogation proved startling, but a ready "Yes, and eat them up," came to her story-telling lips. And she added in reply to our almost tearful pleadings that the corner monsters' victims did not include little boys unless the little boys played truant.
These fatal words proved our undoing. Try as we could, and three of us solemnly vowed to dodge these corner devils for all times, on the Sunday following two of us broke the united front. Deserted by our frightened school-fellow we stayed outside the school chained to the spot: we were playing truant, challenging in our terror the nearest devil on our side of the road. We fixed our gaze on the worst and ugliest of the bad and ugly lot. We did not look at each other, for fear had petrified. We watched and watched for what appeared a long time, but there was no movement. Then some shadow must have cut across the back of the gargoyle. It seemed to us that it moved. Spellbound we watched, and two nervous little hands found each other, as my fellow-watcher's trembling fingers clutched mine. Then the figure seemed to squirm like a cat as though about to jump. We saw the twist of the body, the mouth snapped, the eyes blinked, and thereupon two screaming, howling boys ran madly away, gasping, white with fear of the nightmare devils, and finally falling down helpless and scared to death. That ended the beginning of my theological learning.
Those of my readers who have passed through Stapleton Road Station will perhaps remember that church on the right on their way to Wales from London. There is a square tower to the church, and on each corner of it there are creeping reptiles and gargoyles with menacing countenance, and a ferocious snarl on their ugly mouths. They were always a wonder and a terror to me. What were they doing there? I could not understand that some demented architect had borrowed the beastly shapes church of medieval lore, or that perverted brains had fashioned the horrible shapes in hate or fear. My only consolation was the thought that they were well fastened down.
Once, at a lesson given by a flighty-brained teacher, I asked her what the animals at the top of the church meant. The alarming news was instantly vouchedsafe that the beasts were to watch the four quarters of the earth against the devils and enemies of Christians, to pounce upon them, rend them, and thus they remained everlastingly on the watch. "Would they eat them up. teacher?" This timid interrogation proved startling, but a ready "Yes, and eat them up," came to her story-telling lips. And she added in reply to our almost tearful pleadings that the corner monsters' victims did not include little boys unless the little boys played truant.
These fatal words proved our undoing. Try as we could, and three of us solemnly vowed to dodge these corner devils for all times, on the Sunday following two of us broke the united front. Deserted by our frightened school-fellow we stayed outside the school chained to the spot: we were playing truant, challenging in our terror the nearest devil on our side of the road. We fixed our gaze on the worst and ugliest of the bad and ugly lot. We did not look at each other, for fear had petrified. We watched and watched for what appeared a long time, but there was no movement. Then some shadow must have cut across the back of the gargoyle. It seemed to us that it moved. Spellbound we watched, and two nervous little hands found each other, as my fellow-watcher's trembling fingers clutched mine. Then the figure seemed to squirm like a cat as though about to jump. We saw the twist of the body, the mouth snapped, the eyes blinked, and thereupon two screaming, howling boys ran madly away, gasping, white with fear of the nightmare devils, and finally falling down helpless and scared to death. That ended the beginning of my theological learning.
All Hallows Hall, All Hallows Road
This building also has some interesting figures.
