St Mary and St David Church, Kilpeck

Kilpeck Church, dedicated to St Mary and St David, is one of Britain’s finest examples of Norman Romanesque architecture. Built around 1140, the church is renowned for its extraordinary carvings, including its celebrated south door adorned with intricate Celtic, Viking, and Christian symbolism. The corbel table surrounding the church features 89 surviving sculpted stones, depicting mythical beasts, human figures, and sacred imagery, with the famous Sheela-na-gig among them.

You’ll find wonderful carvings of knights, mythical beasts and interlaced vinescrolls around the main doorway (south side), and other stunning details throughout the church. While some of these carvings depict saints and angels, others suggest folk traditions and memories which stretch back beyond Christianity to earlier, pagan beliefs. For example, scholars today still don’t know quite what to make of the famous ‘Sheela Na Gig’ corbel on the south side of the church. This strange and explicit carving of a female figure pulling apart her vulva could be a fertility symbol, a depiction of a goddess, or just a comic motif. The full meaning of this medieval image is now forgotten. 85 corbels survive around the walls of the church – each one is well worth a closer look.

Other landmarks in Kilpeck include the ruined motte-and-bailey castle with its earthworks. This was probably first established around 1090, as the administrative centre of the surrounding area of Archenfield. There are also traces of a lost medieval village immediately to the east of the church, with the tell-tale remnants of ridge-and-furrow farming and lines of enclosures visible in aerial photography (and, in some cases, on the ground). This village may once have been home to a community of 600 people, and by 1259 held a weekly market and annual fair. Why it was abandoned is now forgotten.

Situated in the rolling Herefordshire countryside, Kilpeck Church marks the starting point of section 12 of St Thomas Way, a pilgrimage route inspired by the medieval journey to honour St Thomas Cantilupe, the 13th-century Bishop of Hereford and England’s last canonised saint. The church itself stands on an ancient sacred site, with connections to pre-Christian spirituality and early Celtic Christianity.

Much more information can be found about this church at the website: https://kilpeckchurch.org.uk/