Leaving your mark

Having worked most of the weekend (not an uncommon occurrence when one's household consists of a freelancer and a postgraduate researcher), we awarded ourselves a little jaunt to Abergavenny. Usually we are just passing through on the A40, but for once we parked up and spent a very pleasant four hours or so exploring the town.

Since I was there regularly for work over a decade ago, the high street has gone upmarket rather, with some very smart clothes shops and innumerable eateries. We treated ourselves to coffee and cake at one such (seated in a little booth like a garden summerhouse, several of which have sprung up outside establishments along the pedestrianised street) and an excellent Turkish lunch at another. In between, we took in some murals, interesting architectural details (including the Art Deco frontage of the former Burton's shop, and an ex-pub adorned with horned cattle heads), and a rather fine war memorial.

The highlight, though, was the Priory Church of St Mary's: superb medieval tombs, countless memorials underfoot, late medieval choir stalls replete with carvings (dragons/wyverns were a recurring motif), fine modern ecclesiastical art, a striking pre-Norman font, the splendid carved wooden figure of Jesse, dreaming, and the new Jesse window, a glowing memorial in stained glass to a former incumbent who died a decade ago. Today's blip is humbler - graffiti from the desks of the choir stalls, which the visitor leaflet attributes to 18th century schoolboys. I adore these traces of real human beings, leaving their mark with their own hands, memorialised in their own lifetimes rather than by stonemasons in stone cold death. John Hornblower, whoever you were, I salute you.