Holt's Piscina

St Chad’s Church at Holt is peculiar old place about which I have already written. In the south wall there is a piscina, which is an old sink built into the wall down which water could be poured after some Roman ceremonial. Such things are not uncommon in medieval churches, even though they scarcely serve a modern purpose. Holt’s has a rather large and unhuman-like carved head beneath it. Whether this represents some kind of demon who is located beneath the piscina, or Satan himself keeping a beady eye on those who design to attend worship (and those who don’t), I cannot say. Perhaps it is a fish-creature, the ‘pisces’ from the horoscope or simply a play on the liquids which would have disappeared down the piscina’s hole. His gurning presence may have been a source of amusement rather than fear; he may be effecting a smile. As the original sculptor and users are long gone, we may never know.

Twice in Matthew and Luke does the Lord refer to the sign of Jonah, the original fish-man who emerged from a sea creature’s mouth to preach repentance to the wicked Ninevites. Even more impressive was the emergence of the Lord Jesus from the mouth of the grave, a great darkness more terrifying than the churning ocean. He was rather more gracious than His prophet of several centuries previous, but the message is the same: repent and believe.

But he answered and said unto them “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas” Matthew 12:39

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