Richard Suggett’s new book on the late medieval Welsh church, Painted Temples, includes a list of every church in Wales with medieval wall paintings – that is to say, with known wall paintings, for we have no idea how many more exist beneath multiple layers of later plaster and paint.
Like the recent discovery in Rutland of a Romano-British mosaic depicting the battle between Achilles and Hector at the conclusion of the Trojan War, every new find has the potential to rewrite history. In the case of wall paintings, just such a moment occurred on Shrove Tuesday, 5 February 2008, when conservationists Jane Rutherfoord and Anne Ballantyne began to reveal an image of St George on the south aisle wall at the church of St Cadoc, in Llancarfan, some 11 miles south-west of Cardiff in the Vale of Glamorgan. By 2017, once the 20 overlying coats of limewash, distemper, and emulsion had been painstakingly removed, flake by flake, it was apparent that this was no ordinary St George. Rather it is a work of the highest artistic quality and one of the finest paintings of its kind anywhere in Christendom.
The figure of the warrior saint is magnificent: the painter has used artistic licence to swap the lance and shield from the correct side to show St George wearing his shield on his right arm. You can feel the tension in his body as he braces in his stirrups and uses both hands to drive his lance through the dragon’s throat. The reptilian qualities of the dragon are reflected in the scales of the knight’s armour: the solleret covering the foot, the flutes of the articulated knee joint, the couter protecting his elbow, and the extraordinary fan-shaped crest. All this shows a knowledge of contemporary armour, dating from around 1430, as do the cantle at the back of the saddle, the bascinet (helmet), the gauntlets, and the upper and lower cuirasses, or breastplates.
Sherds CA 408