> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.digest.andymarshall.co/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # 📝 Field Notes from my Camper-van-camino: Kilpeck in Herefordshire - URL: https://www.digest.andymarshall.co/field-notes-from-my-camper-van-camino-kilpeck-in-herefordshire/ - Published: 2026-08-18T11:00:48.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-18T11:01:30.000Z - Description: That such an exotic thing with Angkor Watt curves can be hidden within the ballast of a grim winter's day is quite remarkable. - Author: Andy Marshall - Tags: field notes, kilpeck, st. mary and st. david kilpeck, romanesque, churchcrawling, winter, herefordshire ****HOTSPOTS** ### Kilpeck, Herefordshire ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/Kilpeck-5-1.jpg) **I'm driving through a bleak winter landscape. The season has de-saturated the colour in the fields. Bony fingered branches rise up towards me and then pass as I drive along the lane. The Mynd is a haze.** Then I can sense a shift in atmosphere. The van wheels are a portent: they change from a hum to a gravelly crunch. The lanes are getting narrower and just beyond the horizon I can see my destination: St. Mary and St. David's, Kilpeck. That such an exotic thing with Angkor Watt curves can be hidden within the ballast of a grim winter's day is quite remarkable. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_7735-1.JPG) Kilpeck is in Herefordshire, England but was originally a part of the Welsh kingdom of Ergyng and the Welsh language remained strong here until the C19th. This is a place between - between two cultures, two identities, two histories. It is from this unique co-mingling of identity that such a remarkable building has come about. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/CV7MWTvWwAA-UHK.jpeg) The church lies to the south of a deserted medieval village site. The remains of the motte and bailey of the castle are evident within the landscape to the west of the church. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/Kilpeck-5-2.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_7741-1.JPG) Every time I visit this place, the air feels charged, my senses are piqued. More than the building, it is the Romanesque carvings that draw me in. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_7746-1.JPG) Caught around the perfect proportions of a three cell C12th Romanesque plan is a lavish and eclectic mix of carving that fire the imagination and defy one's preconceptions of a Christian church. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_7751-1.JPG) If there were the cultural equivalent of the health addage of 'having five a day' - the corbel table on the exterior of the church would be bounty enough. It is jam packed with visual and metaphorical nutrients. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_7716-1-1.JPG) Each one is divinely crafted, each one has a meaning and every one is rooted in the [Bestiary's](https://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/what.php?ref=digest.andymarshall.co#:~:text=of%20the%20Illustrations-,What%20is%20a%20Bestiary%3F,accompanied%20by%20a%20moralising%20explanation.) of the medieval world and, beyond that, into the texts of ancient Greece. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_7718.JPG) The most surprising addition is the [Shela-na-Gig](https://sheelanagig.org/?ref=digest.andymarshall.co). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/351924493_097224014b-1.jpg) Shela-na-Gig - on the corbel table at Kilpeck - thought to be a fertility symbol The south door is one of the best preserved in the country. Full of exotic carving depicting beasts and warriors. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_7712-1.JPG) And there it is on the tympanum - a grape. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_7739.JPG) The tympanum has depictions of, amongst others - an angel, a phoenix, a dragon and birds, plus beakheads with an overbite. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_7714-1-1.JPG) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_7715-1.JPG) I see connections with Norse tradition with the Celtic world, with Santiago de Compostela and the Byzantine. What a melting pot. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_7738-1.JPG) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_7740-1.JPG) --- The interior also has some wonderful carving to the chancel arch. The carvings depict martyrs or saints, including one carving of St. Peter. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_7759.JPG) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_7758-1.JPG) --- **Members get to see some immersive extra content on Kilpeck including VR's of the exterior and interior and a wonderful aerial video that shows Kilpeck in context. Click the boxes below for more:** [Be there: Kilpeck interior, Herefordshire in glorious VRKilpeck in Herefordshire is home to the remarkable Romanesque church of St. Mary and St. David.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/12/Andy.png)Andy Marshall's Genius Loci DigestAndy Marshall![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/size/w1200/2024/01/IMG_20231214_133908_00_merged.jpg)](https://www.digest.andymarshall.co/be-there-kilpeck-interior-herefordshire-in-glorious-vr/) [Be there: Kilpeck, Herefordshire in glorious VRKilpeck in Herefordshire is home to the remarkable Romanesque church of St. Mary and St. David.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/12/Andy.png)Andy Marshall's Genius Loci DigestAndy Marshall![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/size/w1200/2024/01/Kilpeck-5.jpg)](https://www.digest.andymarshall.co/be-there-kilpeck/) [Aerial Video of St. Mary and St. David, Kilpeck, Herefordshire.One of the finest village churches in the country. Kilpeck is a delight that sits within an ancient landscape that has been carved out by history.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/12/Andy.png)Andy Marshall's Genius Loci DigestAndy Marshall![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/size/w1200/2024/01/Kilpeck-5-2-1.jpg)](https://www.digest.andymarshall.co/aerial-video-of-st-mary-and-st-david-kilpeck-herefordshire/) --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_8110-1.JPG) My Rollei - so good I sketched it.... **For this very special place I've brought a very special camera - my Rolleflex film camera.** The Rollei is a process in itself, and being supplicant to its needs, gives me the time to absorb the atmosphere around me. It helps bring about a creative space. Firstly, I take time to load up the film in the pub the week before I visit Kilpeck. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/GA1KU7LXwAA1NzR.jpeg) Then, later at Kilpeck, with a little reverence, I remove it from the bag in the van with an air of anticipation. I take it into the nave, carefully set up the composition, and set about my work. I take a light reading and then plumb the information into the camera. The dials are mechanical and tactile with a sweetness of sound that is reminiscent of when the camera was made in the 1950's. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_8104.JPG) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_8107.JPG) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_8108.JPG) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_8109.JPG) I stand and wait for the light to move around to the chancel arch and then take another reading until the sweet spot of the day comes about. I press the shutter release and wait for three seconds until I hear it close. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_7769-1.JPG) I feel like a connosieur, at the peak of my game - a magician with light, until a week later I develop the film. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/img867.jpg) "What a nob." I think to myself. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2024/01/IMG_8111-1.JPG) --- Readers of the Genius Loci Digest ## What stays with readers > “ > > That aura, those echoes - the muted light is transporting. What a space to feel rooted in history. I'd love to make that journey myself; you've stirred the opera lover and architectural dreamer in me. > > @sonatasips via X > “ > > Genius Loci has rapidly become the highlight of my Friday morning mailboxes, Andy! > > David via Linkedin > “ > > In reading & seeing Andy's work I always struggle to know which is more impactful - his writing or photos. In truth, the two combined are greater than their parts, he allows you to explore the importance of place and time from the comfort of home. > > Peter from Bluesky > “ > > Andy your work is becoming wonderful, remarkable. A so-called breakdown has been milled into its constituent parts, becoming profound construction: through perception, architecture, the lens and the pen. > > Stephen via Email 1 2 3 4 ← Ⅱ → ![The vaulted nave of York Minster glowing with filtered light](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2025/07/GjFbo3aXoAAgtYU.jpeg) York Minster - light through the nave01 / 04 ![Ancient carved stones and timber roof at Durham Cathedral's Open Treasure](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/production/photos/rt4ccpqm0nalr9e9vv5oxo8invcfxar6wbvq/original.jpg) Durham Cathedral - Open Treasure02 / 04 ![A family approaching the restored cloister at Exeter Cathedral](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2025/06/Clews-Exeter-April-2025-134.jpg) Exeter Cathedral - new life beside the old03 / 04 ![The Iron Bridge reflected in calm water at dusk](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/production/photos/aii66p605mkuajmgvjdqnt9325o42kjghcac/original.jpg) The Iron Bridge - reflected at dusk04 / 04 From the heritage portfolio Three Ways to Come With Me ## Choose how to join, share or support Andy Marshall's work [ ↗ Join Free Travel with me each Friday Receive the free weekly Genius Loci Digest in your inbox - photography, place-writing and overlooked stories from the road. 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