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Like the west portal at Rochester,
Patrixbourne’s south portal has five orders of voussoirs, though each is
different in character and there is also a decorated hood mould, unlike
Rochester’s which is plain. The ornamentation of the Patrixbourne hood
mould, described by Stone as ‘new dog-tooth’, is difficult to parallel
locally.29 The west portals at Rochester and St Margaret’s
at Cliffe, and the south portal at Barfreston, have nothing comparable.
The voussoirs immediately below the hood mould contain twenty-three
motifs, twenty-one of which are framed in foliage. The lowest figure on
the western side is a grotesque without foliage and the block is half as
wide again as the others, which are roughly equal in size. The grotesque
is a griffin with the head of a woman or child wearing a bonnet. All but
one of the medallion-style motifs are arranged in pairs, each with a
similar pattern of foliage in mirror image. Some medallions have been
restored and some sculpture appears not to fit into a pattern. The central
figures in each pair generally alternate between heads and birds and most
of the heads seem to be of men with longish hair and beards.
(See Appendix 1.)
The portal is of a uniform and familiar style with
foliage and grotesques as recurrent themes, with the possible exception of
the Agnus Dei. Most writers, like Zarnecki, who have commented in
any detail on the sculpture have drawn parallels with examples in western
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France,
and most have also seen similarities with the west door at Rochester.
However, Stone believes that the tympanum and lintel of the Patrixbourne
door bears ‘little relation to the new French influence’. Musset
suggests that the same team of sculptors was active at Patrixbourne and
Barfreston but a comparison of the Patrixbourne, Barfreston and Rochester
doors seems to support Kahn’s view that there is a much closer
relationship between Patrixbourne and Rochester than Patrixbourne and
Barfreston. First, the sculpture at Barfreston in general is more delicate
and there is greater use of foliage than at either Rochester or
Patrixbourne. Second, the voussoir motifs are quite different with signs
of the zodiac and labours of the year forming a coherent programme at
Barfreston. Finally, although all three tympana feature Christ in Majesty
and angels, the style of the Barfreston figures on the voussoirs is
rounder and fuller than the others.
Musset writes that the south portal is a long way from the
austere geometric style, but that is not the case of the priest’s door
in the south chancel (Plate V). The voussoirs over the narrow door
and the lintels are carved with geometric patterns. Only the capitals on
the single round column on each side have non-geometric patterns, and
these are not figurative but scalloped capitals with what seems to be
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