Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1899-05-03
MARKS IN CHURCHES.
Circles, Dots and Lines of UnknOwn
Meaning ON Ancient Walls
I'm England.

There are on the walls of many Eng
fish churches, particularly those of the
south midland counties, mysterious
marks, some fairly large, many very
small, that have puzzled ecclesiologists
ever since that estimable race existed.
They are most common on the south
wall of the nave and aisles. Almost
invariably they are at such height as
would show that they cannot have been
made by village idlers of the class who
have favored us with so many cup
marks. They fall into three main
classes: "a a dot surrounded by one
or more concentric circles; (2) circles
containing radii, more or less numer-
Gus; and (3) dots arranged in squares,
sometimes connected by lines and some
times not. With regard to these last
own 1 am unable even to suggest a
theory. 1 could give list of things
they cannot possibly mean, but what
they do is, as "Jcames" is reported to
have remarked, ''wropp'd in mystery"
The second variety 1 want to speak
of is the circle with radii. Sometimes
there are IL radii, sometimes "a, some
times an odd number. Sometimes the
radii are confined to one part of the cir
Gle, sometimes not. 1t is, confessedly,
about this variety that the interest in
wall-marks eliminates. In some in
stances there can be no doubt that they
are incomplete sun-dials, though in
these cases, as at Redbourne( Herts),
they are so unastronomically arranged
as to lead to the conclusion that our
early ancestors were as Indifferent as
if they had been orientals to the fight
of time. But the majority cannot by
any stretch of the Imagination have
been time recorders. No one would
put a dial in the south inner wall of a
church.
Another theory which has been start
ed is that these marks are a survival of
an ancient belief in orientation. But
these marks are not to be found in
Norman churches. The earliest we can
absolutely date are First Pointed. Why,
then, should heather belief have lain
dormant for a couple of hundred years,
at least, and then have been suddenly
and without reason revived? I desire
to reward my readers by propounding a
a brand-new theory. 1t is remarkab BILE
that we do not find these circular
marks containing radii common on our
cathedrals or great fanes. Nearly all
are on the walls of obscure village
churches. We know that in building
minister's and abbeys the workmen had
plans and elevations much as they have
to-day, but that such was the case with
small and uninportant, if equally ar
tistic buildings, is highly improbable.
Yet the very regularity of design shows
that there must have been some master
mind who directed the whole building.
The theory l wish to PROFOUND is that
some at least of these wall-marks with
their varying radii were intended, if
the lines were continued, to mark such
salient points of the building as the
base or springing lines of windows, the
the elevation of a molding, of the cop
ing-stone of the gable, or what not.
If this should have been the intention
of the inscribers it is difficult to imag-
inc any more useful guide to those who
desire, either with view to restora-
ton or for mere study, to discover what
like was an ancient church.-Church
Gazette