The Eton College Chapel Gargoyle

UPDATE: mea culpa – the image that features above this article is not, as I originally thought, that of M R James. My thanks to Nunkie (https://www.nunkie.co.uk/) for pointing this out to me, and for supplying the correct image below.

The gargoyle above is actually that of Sir Eric Anderson, Headmaster of Eton from 1980-94, then Provost of the College 2000-2009.

The magnificent grotesque that you see in the image below is of Montague Rhodes (M.R.) James (1862-1936). Educated at Eton and at King’s College, Cambridge, he was a medieval scholar and became Provost of King’s and then of Eton.

He is perhaps better known as a writer of ghost stories – his collections include ‘Ghost Stories of an Antiquary’, ‘A Thin Ghost’ and ‘A Warning to the Curious’ – which are well worth reading. (They’re all out of copyright, so one can get them for free on Kindle and the Gutenberg Project amongst other places.)

In a ‘typical’ James story, a scholar researching in some out of the way library or church uncovers a text or object that alludes to some medieval horror. Dismissing it as superstition, he then starts to notice strange events – a movement out of the corner of his eye in a darkened room, an object that has moved although no one has been present, a sense of being watched or followed, a sculpture or a carving that seems to have changed appearance. It’s this last strand that makes the James gargoyle so apposite, and I tip my (top) hat to whoever came up with the idea.

One final connection with James and the nearby Windsor Castle. 170 stories were commissioned to fill the books in the library of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House, and James wrote (what else?) ‘The Haunted Dolls’ House’ that sits in a miniature volume on the shelves.