Winchester Cathedral, Winchester, Hampshire, England

The Symmetrical Mythical Beasts and Foliate Scroll Wood Carving at Winchester Cathedral

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High Medieval / English Decorated Gothic Period (c. 1308, early 14th century)

A symmetrical architectural wood paneling fragment from Winchester Cathedral’s choir stalls featuring paired mirror-image winged griffins or dragons with feathered wings and scaled lower bodies resting within lower structural volutes, beneath a central branching stem that splits into two large crocketed leaf finials. Carved around 1308 by William Lingwode, the perfect symmetry without combat domesticates the hybrid creatures, absorbing their strangeness into decorative grammar through the formal demand of the heraldic design.