TV: Pagan imagery in early churches

Another telly programme I watched last night was Churches and How to Read Them: Dark Beginnings, which was shown on BBC4 at 8.30pm.

It offered an insight into the pagan imagery found in Saxon and early Norman churches, including carvings of The Green Man and Sheela-na-Gig.

This was the first part in a new series about churches and the symbolism found within them. It was presented by Richard Taylor, who has also written a book called How to Read a Church.

He also explained why many early churches were built on the site of ancient pagan temples and stone circles and joined a group of dowsers searching for a lost sacred stream beneath a church.

It was a thought-provoking programme, which looked at some really interesting old churches full of pagan-seeming carvings.Programmes on BBC TV Channels are usually available to watch on iPlayer for at least a week after they are shown: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/

How to Read a Church and a print of Sheela-na-Gig, from Kilnaboy, Co. Clare, Ireland are available from Amazon.