Grain (Kent)


A remarkable, now-solitary Romanesque corbel mounted inside the church, and combining several motifs of social unacceptability: this is a tongue-protruding beard-puller whose beard is distinctly vulva-shaped.
Note the splendid hands.

Tongue-stickers (or -pokers) are common on corbel tables and are a kind of semi-bowdlerised male exhibitionist. The same is true for tongue-pullers, like this one at Pérignac (Charente-Maritime):

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photo by John Harding

 

After over 800 years of being associated with the church, the present congregation wish this emphatically anti-carnal corbel to be removed on grounds of 'obscenity'.

 

Click for more pictures on a fraternal site >

 

click for a (Continental) Romanesque beard >

and for remarkable Irish beard-pullers >

and for a selection of beard-pullers, tongue-pokers, etc. >

 

An 1809 view of Grain Church - before a neo-Romanesque tower was added.