The Buncton/Wiston Sheela Na Gig

This Sheela can be found in All Saints Chapel near the tiny village of Wiston in Sussex. The church is situated well off the road behind trees and is very easy to miss. I drove past it a few times while looking for it. There is a red sign on the road indicating the presence of the church which belongs to the parish of Wiston with Buncton. If you have read "Images of Lust" this sheela only gets a passing mention and is reported as being in the village Buncton. This is not entirely accurate as it is situated a little way outside the village of Wiston, in fact Buncton seems to consist of two or three houses and is not clearly signposted.

The sheela itself is situated on the left side of the chancel arch. It is quite high up and unusually it lies on it's side. (see below). A note in the church describes the carving as being that of the mason and makes no reference to it being a sheela or even female. There may be some doubt as to whether this carving is a sheela or not. There are no obvious genitals on display but there does seem to be some indication of toolwork where the genitals should be. If there were carved genitals at some time then the carving would be similar to the one at Oaksey in Wiltshire. This similarity is further borne out by the fact that stances of the figures in both carvings are very similar. The carving also has two very small breasts or nipples which are not obvious in the photograph above. The short comment in "Images of Lust" describes the carving as being "much rubbed", I find this hard to believe for a number of reasons.

1. The carving is far to high for anyone to casually rub it. You would need a ladder or be standing on a chair to reach it.

2. The carving appears to be in situ i.e. It does not seem to have been moved from some more accessible place where rubbing could have taken place.

To my mind it makes more sense that if the carving is a sheela then it has been carefully defaced at some time, notice the scratches around the genital area in the photograph above. In addition to this there is a vulva shaped depression between legs which would seem to that perhaps at one time the figure was more exhibtionist than it is now and has been the victim of some puritanical "enhancement" rather than rubbing for good luck or fertility.

The church itself is very old dating back to between 1150 - 1180 although land had been granted to the church in this as far back as 791 AD. It is romanesque in design which lends some weight to image being a sheela as they are normally found on buildings of this type.