Category: Medieval Church Marks

BRADFORD-ON-AVON . WILTS . TITHE BARN – Scratch Dial

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TITHE BARN . BRADFORD-ON-AVON . WILTS

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GRADE I ✣ The huge tithe barn is dated to the 1330s, replacing an older barn. Even allowing for restoration and maintenance over the centuries, the barn very much retains the feel of a building unchanged for several hundred years. Its situation right by – and lower than – the K&A canal adds to the pleasure of the general surroundings.

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DIAL

Scratch dials on buildings other than churches are rare. TWC mentions only 4 in his (admittedly dated) list of non-church dials, one of which is a tithe barn. Featured in this project are KENILWORTH ABBEY which has a dial on a barn that is a small part of the whole; and MUCHELNEY ABBEY which has one on the S wall of the Abbot’s Lodging. Neither can be regarded as entirely secular.

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The Bradford dial is located on the S wall on a buttress quoin stone near the entrance of the large E doorway. It is considerably eroded and damaged. I can’t see any trace of a dial above the horizontal and I take it to be a semicircle. There are ± 8 visible lines – impossible to be sure. The noon line is deeper cut and 9 (terce) seems more sharply incised, suggesting the main hour of observance. I am almost certain there there are terminal pocks on several lines, an impression taken more from the photos than from direct observation.

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PROTECTION MARKS AND GRAFFITI

Unsurprisingly for such a magnificent medieval structure, there is a vast omnium-gatherum of graffiti and protection marks, mainly at or close to the great entrances as one might expect. Anyone remotely interested in such marks will have a field day. Here is a small gallery.

ENGLISH HERITAGE

BRADFORD-ON-AVON MUSEUM

GSS Category: Scratch Dial; Scratch Dial on Barn; Secular Mass Dials; Protection Marks; Medieval Graffiti

All photos: Keith Salvesen. Please ask for specific use permission to use any of these. Normally I am relaxed, but these images relate to parallel research.

 

POTTERNE . WILTS . ST MARY – Scratch Dial

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St Mary . Potterne . Wilts (Benefice drawing)

ST MARY . POTTERNE . WILTS

GRADE I ❖ Saxon origins; built C13; C15 work to tower; restorations 1870s. A remarkably uniform E.E. design HE; An E.E. church of exceptional purity and classicity PEV. Features of interest include an Anglo-Saxon tub font with rim inscribed in Latin; a C14 font; fine woodwork; C17(?) Royal Arms of puzzling design. Good graffiti on pillars. Outside, there is an unusual Dole Stone; and the scratch dial featured here. 2m S of Devizes. 51.326 / -2.0079 /  ST995585

DIAL

The dial is located on a quoin stone of the buttress at W end of S side. The gnomon hole is centred quite accurately, and surrounded by a ring of small pocks of roughly equal size. The spacing is uneven. 12 of them are drilled in the lower half, in a semicircle that includes the horizontal ‘6-to-6’ line. The other 7 are above the horizontal in the night zone. The pock at notional midnight has 3 on either side, forming an almost symmetrical design. These can only be for decorative purposes, being of no use in marking the passage of the day / night.

As for radial lines, despite erosion 5 lines are visible – 3 LLQ, a faint noon line, the horizontal line RHS. Each terminates with a pock. There remain hints of 2 or 3 others.

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GRAFFITI . FONT WITH LATIN INSCRIPTION . COMPASS-DRAWN PROTECTION MARKS

The VV in the first image, assuming it is an initial, is in the distinctive form of a Marian mark, a commonly found protection symbol standing for the ‘Virgin of Virgins’.

GSS Category: Scratch Dial; Mass Dial

All photos Keith Salvesen; header drawing from the Benefice site

WORTH MATRAVERS . DORSET . ST ALDHELM’S CHAPEL – Protection Marks & Graffiti

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ST ALDHELM’S CHAPEL

GRADE I ♱ St Aldhelm’s is an isolated Norman chapel high on the Dorset cliffs with only a coastguard station and a couple of cottages for company. Its quite a walk from the car park. There are various theories about the chapel and its purpose. Was it a chapel originally? There’s no evidence of an altar or piscina. Might it have been built as a watchtower before taking on a religious purpose, evidenced by payments made in C13 to a chaplain? There is a thorough Wiki entry for the chapel HERE.

Besides sundials from Saxon times to the present day, other medieval features merit inclusion here. The relevant pages can be found in the main menu. A broad category of ‘Church Marks’ includes protection marks such as the Marian VV, daisy wheels and other circular / interlocking circles dates and initials, taper marks, masons’ marks.

PROTECTION MARKS & GRAFFITI

HIGHLIGHTS FROM ST ALDHELM’S CHAPEL

PURBECK RADAR MEMORIAL

Commemorating the pioneering radar work carried out in WW2, with an inspired design that harks back to the fire beacons that warned of the Spanish Armada.

All photos: Keith Salvesen