Angels and Demons in the roof of St Peter’s Church in Upwell Norfolk. We try to visit St Peter’s Church in Norfolk each year for the Flower Festival, and also so I can take photos of the wonderful roof carvings. Each year I find something I have missed the pervious years. This post is covering the angels and demons from various years, and next post will be of the Flower Festival.
The roof angels are likely to date from the first half, perhaps even the first quarter of the C15th. The wings have been replaced, but the bodies and heads are original, and I would think the demons date from that period as well. The demons are pretty scary and would have kept the congregation on the the path of righteousness, or at least given them nightmares. I find both angels and demons fascinating and often wonder where the wood carvers got their ideas from.
Echoes of the Past 
Wonder why they have the mouths of the demons open with what looks like long tongues. Maybe like Pinocchio their tongues got longer instead of noses.😁
They are part of the roof, in one of the photos you can see them next to the angels, and they are just a way of making the bracket part of the roof beams look like something else than just a piece of wood, clever for a medieval builder 🙂 But you could be right about the tongues in a biblical sense, loose tongues etc 🙂
Oh I like that ! Loose tongues 😂
🙂
Thanks for so much close-up detail, Lynne, of both angels and demons. One at least of the demons reminds me of Chinese counterparts with folds of skin surrounding blazing eyes. I’d so much love for the colour scheme to have survived too, what a sight that would have been, the host of heaven lit from underneath by candles!
Glad you enjoyed them Chris. I love the idea of candle power 🙂
Interesting stuff – I’m also researching angels and demons in Norfolk churches. I really like Upwell because you can get close to the carving. I have many Norfolk church photos on my website too – mainly of small medieval details.
Thank you Paul, glad to find someone else interested in the subject. I just love walking into a church and finding new carvings. I found a merman yesterday in Southwell Minster, also many other wonderful carvings. I love the look of you book, although I love taking taking b&w street photos, I only shot the odd church in b&w, but yours do look very good. I am a bit behind with posting for the last couple of months, as we are restoring an old Georgian (with older parts) house and it is just eating time up at the moment. But I am going to spend some time looking at your blog, a treat after a hard day. Regards, Lynne 🙂