SCARECROWS

Dinton held its first ever Scarecrow Competition yesterday with some entries being shown at the church and others round the village. This elderly lady was the first one I encountered, sitting beneath a lovely display of flowers and waiting for someone to bring her a cuppa and slice of cake.

The entries were done by children and adults and this young cyclist was waiting by the door for her companion. A jolly piratical gent, with dagger thrust in his belt, was guarding the porch door and
a young lady named Lavender waited nearby. I wonder if this is prompted by something on The Archers as there was a letter from one of the actors, plus photo, not far away.
Oh dear, a lady succumbing to the excitement of the day! However, help was arriving as I left, carefully making my way back up the cobbled path.
It was a grey day - again - and this gentleman's extremities were getting cold but help was at hand...Perhaps he nipped round to the Seven Stars before taking his place outside his home.
Another couple look a little bit under the weather....
A guard is obviously angry about the prospect of HS2 spoiling the locality. Dinton will hear the noise of these superfast trains.

Dad's been left to look after the children while Mum's taken some time off.
A couple of young ladies decided they wanted to make scarecrows - and why not a horse and a dog, complete with his bowl? Dad explained that a scarecrow was usually a person but they stuck to their guns and produced these.

Not far away a quiet gentleman was fishing, complete with his umbrella and fishing rod. You can see the fish he's just caught, there on the left hand side as it swings gently in the breeze.
A simpering Miss was the last scarecrow I saw in the village but I may have missed a few as Dinton is a place of little dead ends and many corners. Perhaps some were put out after I'd gone home with my snapshots but a varied and colourful display.

DINTON CHURCH

Yesterday I decided I couldn't waste such a fine day by sitting indoors and knitting so hopped into the car and drove about 4 miles towards Thame to visit Dinton Church. Despite its nearness to home I've never been to see it though I did know some things about it.

The first thing that greeted me was a vista of molehills - all dug by 'the little gentleman in the black velvet coat'. I have moles, or a mole, in the garden from time to time and you know he's about because plants are leaning over sideways where they've been undermine

As I rounded the corner of the church I could hear singing - Michael Ball and 'Love Changes Everything'. I found the door open and a couple of ladies making flower arrangements for a funeral being held today. They were testing a tape to see if the songs on it would be suitable. For me, it meant that I didn't have to go and find a keyholder if it had been locked.

The Norman door to Dinton Church is well known for the carving on the tympanum above the entrance.

On the lintel it shows a dragon deciding to attack St. Michael who is holding out a small cross. The larger carving shows monsters eating fruit from the ?Tree of Life.

The porch, which helps to shelter this carving, also has some carved corbels. They aren't in very good condition looking as if they've been subjected to weathering over many centuries.

I've seen an etching of the door from the 19th century and there is no porch. Perhaps the church couldn't afford top notch carvers in the first place as they seem to be rather naive faces.

The stocks used to be on a patch of grass ouside the church boundary but at some point they've been brought into the porch's shelter. I wonder if they had a one-legged trouble maker in Dinton - there are 5 leg holes....

Inside, the church has a high ceiling and it's light and bright unlike Stone church which is stone walled and grey. The pews have kneelers made to different patterns depending on the interests of the maker. This is just a selection and it wasn't an easy choice. They are all hung on hooks on the back of the pew in front.

Dinton font is an example of the 'Aylesbury type' of font, ie, a cup/goblet shape.

I asked the flower arranging ladies why various items were covered in these blue cases - because there are bats in the church and it stops their deposits from damaging the items, though only certain objects were shrouded like this.

I took a photo of the organ, which is large for a small church but - it wasn't good enough to include. There are some hand worked representations of the village done in wools and materials and framed behind glass - and out of the light.

The plaque commemorates a member of the Currie family whose home was next door in Dinton Hall. The Curries played a part in the wider district - in 1931 Sir William Currie had attended the opening of Stone's 'vastly improved bowling green'.

In the spring of 1944 Lt. Currie was killed at Kohima, the furthest point which the Japanese reached in their attempted invasion of India. It was 'the scene of some of the bitterest fighting of the whole Burma campaign.' The road to Imphal was re-opened after huge casualties from hand to hand fighting, where for a time the Deputy Commissioner's tennis court formed a no-man's-land. It has been outlined in white concrete and this is the site of the cemetery. It holds Commonwealth soldiers, Hindu and Sikhs. There is a memorial to the 2nd British Division, a large stone which bears the inscription -

When you go home

Tell them of us and say,

For their tomorrow

We gave our today.

(This information comes from Vol.3 of an Imperial War Graves Commission booklet, pub. 1958, which I picked up in a charity shop many years ago. Its title is TheirName Liveth. )

As I left the church I walked round the exterior and saw this grotesque high on the wall near the roof.

I'd have called it a gargoyle but I've recently seen a QI programme where the host, Stephen Fry, said gargoyles are for diverting rain water away from the building and this type of carving is known as a grotesque. I believe him!

Dinton Hall was renovated over several years but I don't know what its use is these days; one web site suggested a gentlefolks' home...There is an amazing range of twisted chimneys which in my photo look like a block - I was paying too much attention to the patterning on the roof.

In the time of the Civil War in the mid 17th Century it belonged to Simon Mayne, friend of Cromwell and one of the signatories to Charles I's death warrant. When Charles II returned to England Mayne was incarcerated in the Tower of London but is buried at Dinton. Just along the road is a pub called The Dinton Hermit which used to have a sign of a man in old-fashioned clothes.

The man was John Bigg, Simon Mayne's clerk. Alison Uttley says, in her Buckinghamshire book, that tradition has it he was Charles I's executioner and, struck with remorse, lived as a hermit. One of his leather shoes, patched, repatched and patched again until it became enormous, is in the Bodleian Library, according to a website. I can't remember whether I've seen it or not...

Something nice to end on. I walked for about a mile on a flat road and on the way back to the car saw these violets shining in the grass.....