St Ethelbert and All Saints, Belchamp Otten, Essex The church of St Elthelbert and All Saints stands in the village of Belchamp Otten in Essex near the Suffolk border and in the Stour valley. It dates back to the 12th century and is quite simple inside. The only graffiti to be found is on the…
March Miscellany Upcoming Events Ritual Building Protection Through Pyro-Technology Hidden Charms 4 Tour of Graffiti in St Bartholomew the Great in London York Witchcraft Symposium is back! With @CREMSYork and @MagicNotWitches And it is all about #magic and #witchcraft pic.twitter.com/L8bnZg7VeT — Dr Debora Moretti (@singinghistori1) March 27, 2023 Items of Interest Historic Graffiti Found in…
St John the Evangelist, Little Leighs, Essex The church of St John the Evangelist in Little Leighs dates back to the early twelfth century. The south door and the font, where most of the graffiti in the church is located, both date to the thirteenth century. Possibly the most noteworthy graffiti can be found on…
A brief digression on Merchant Marks As part of my lockdown activities (because there are very few locked buildings you can attempt to record from the outside) I took time to catch up on my reading for several historic periods where I felt my knowledge was thin. Immersed in the 18th century and the Exeter…
Hopital des Pelerins, Pons, France (1/2) The Pilgrims Hospital in Pons, in the departement of Charente-Maritime in France, dates back to the 12th century. It was built as a rest stop on the pilgrimage route to Santiago di Compostella in Spain. A church and a hostel were attached to each other by a porch over…
A fireplace lintel from a farmhouse in Stokeinteignhead, Devon As lockdown eased I was invited by a local farmer to look over an historic farmyard on the outskirts of this typical Devon village. The buildings comprise part of a busy working farm, and cannot be visited by the general public. The trapezoid of original farmyard…
St John the Baptist, Bishopsteignton, Devon Contrary to what you might expect, sometimes the worst thing that can happen to an historic building is to have too much money spent on it. Too little money and it might just dissolve back into the parent soil; the right amount and it survives from century to…
St Mary the Virgin, Little Easton, Essex The church of St Mary the Virgin dates back to the 12th century and has been altered through the succeeding centuries. There are two sets of existing medieval wall paintings showing the events leading up to the crucifixion and also one of an unidentified seated prophet. The south…
Abbey Barn, Glastonbury, Somerset Rural Life Museum The 14th century Abbey Barn at Glastonbury now forms the north range of a substantially 19th century farmyard, and is part of the Somerset Rural Life Museum. When built it would have been the abbey manor barn, sited just outside the precinct walls of the abbey complex. It…
Bath Abbey, Bath and Northeast Somerset The Abbey Church of St Peter and St Paul, better known as Bath Abbey, has been undergoing a £19.3 million programme of major works, funded largely by the Heritage Lottery Fund, in order to repair the Abbey’s collapsing floor, install a new heating system using the nearby hot springs…
St Mary the Virgin, Stone near Dartford, Kent In December 2016 the Kent Medieval Graffiti Survey (KMGS) surveyed the church of St Mary the Virgin, Stone near Dartford. Tucked away down a lane, off what used to be the main A2 road and now surrounded by modern housing developments is the lovely old church of…
Devon, St Andrew Stokeinteignhead The church of St Andrew at Stokeinteignhead, South Devon, stands slightly above the surrounding cottages on the rising ground of a steep valley, which here widens out sufficiently to allow the formation of a village centre. The setting is constrained by the landscape, so that the relationship between church, church house…
Hampton Court Palace, London (1/2) I went to Hampton Court Palace as a tourist, wanting to keep an eye out for graffiti but not having planned this visit as a graffiti-hunting trip. I was blown away by how much graffiti there is in the place from drawings and protective marks in the Tudor kitchens to…
Pew and Choir Stall Graffiti from Kent and a little from elsewhere Graffiti isn’t only found on stonework in churches, castles and houses. Alan Anstee of the Kent Medieval Graffiti Survey talks about some of the fascinating graffiti he’s seen on wooden church pews and choir stalls. When I was first asked to write something…
St John The Baptist, Higher Ashton, Devon The little church of St John the Baptist, at Higher Ashton in Devon would appear to be a place with an identity crisis. Pevsner and Cherry, the accepted guide to English buildings, refers to it as St Michael. Nicholas Orme, in his scholarly survey of English Church Dedications, finds…
St Mary’s Priory, Little Dunmow, Essex (2/3) In the previous post of St Mary’s Priory in Little Dunmow, we looked at the graffiti round the doorway and the first two columns. This revealed the first of two graffiti described in Pritchard’s English Medieval Graffiti. The rest of the graffiti in the church is on…
St Mary’s Priory, Little Dunmow, Essex (1/3) St Mary’s Priory, Little Dunmow is a strange church. The windows on the north side are wildly out of proportion to those on the south and the tower looks like someone stole an italian campanile and glued it to one corner. Inside, there is an arcade of…
St Mary the Virgin, Tilty, Essex The church of St Mary the Virgin was originally the Chapel Outside the Gate of the Cistercian Abbey of St Mary in Tilty. Both abbey and church were built in the 13th century. When the abbey was destroyed in the dissolution of the monasteries only the church remained apart…
St Michael the Archangel, Ilsington, Devon St Michael Ilsington is a large church that lies at the heart of its village, is accessible by way of the church steps, which are directly adjacent to the pub, or by a level entrance from the southwest corner of the site, passing through a gatehouse which once housed the…
St Mary the Virgin, High Easter, Essex The parish church of St Mary the Virgin in High Easter is a large church in a small village. The church dates back to the 12th century with additions up to the 16th century. The roof and clerestory as well as the south porch all belong to the…
Church of St Mary, Kington, Herefordshire Kington is a small market town on the Welsh Marches, resting in the shadow of Hergest Ridge. There was a church at Kington in the 12th century but above ground only the font survives. The current building dates from the 13th century, and is a Grade 1 Listed Building….
St Michael, Lyme Regis, Dorset The approach to St Michael Lyme Regis through the town is not at first immediately obvious. The church is at the far end of what is now the main shopping street, round a corner, up a slope and virtually hidden behind later building. The graveyard is shielded from the sea…
St Martin, Little Waltham, Essex The church of St Martin at Little Waltham dates back to the Normans, but was rebuilt extensively in the 15th century. There is no graffiti visible anywhere in the church, but some if to be found on the north side of the tower arch. There, divided by a modern partition…
St John the Baptist, Bere Regis, Dorset The church of St John the Baptist dates to the 12th century with additions for three centuries. The ceiling was paid for by Cardinal John Morton (of Morton’s Fork fame) in 1485. Morton was born in the parish of St John the Baptist. There are statues of the 12…
Kings College Chapel, Cambridge There is a danger in graffiti hunting that you focus so much on the details on the walls and columns that you can fail to appreciate the wider beauty of the structures you are visiting. Here’s a tip, if you go looking for graffiti in King’s College Chapel, before you do…
St Mary and St Clement, Clavering, Essex (2/4) South Arcade The south arcade of St Mary and St Clement has an abundance of exciting graffiti. There are several compass drawn and hand drawn circle designs of varying complexity in the south arcade. The most notable of which are one large spiral within a compass drawn…
St Mary and St Clement, Clavering, Essex (1/4) The chancel of St Mary and St Clement was built in the late 14th century. The rest of the church was built at the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries. The roof is original, with angel carvings. The screen has traces of saints…
St Mary’s, Charminster, Dorset St Mary’s church at Charminster is an 11th century church, extended and improved in the 14th and 16th centuries by the local Trenchard family. The monogram of Thomas Trenchard made up of spirally intertwined Ts is visible in carvings and plaques throughout the church interior and exterior. The are two compass…
All Saints, Rickling, Essex All Saints Church, Rickling is an interesting church in more ways than one. For a start, the nave and the chancel are on slightly different alignments, which indicates an earlier plan than the current 14th Century one. The graffiti, also has some unique elements including compass circles of hitherto unseen design…
West Ogwell Church, Devon West Ogwell Church is a 13th century church, now redundant and in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. It has a simple, whitewashed interior with box pews. The only visible graffiti is on a single limestone block beside the door. There are some Marian marks, initials, dot patterns and hash…
Holy Cross, Felsted, Essex Holy Cross is a wide, light-filled church built in the 12th century with additions and alterations in the 14th and 16th centuries. There have been renovations in the 19th and 20th centuries. These later renovations have removed some of the graffiti, but there is still a substantial amount, especially on the…
May Miscellany This is the first of a series of monthly posts where we feature items of interest from a variety of sites and some links we’ve come across during the month. Even if you only have a single photo from a site, do send it in with details of where it was taken, so…
St Mary’s Church and Tower, Berkeley, Gloucestershire St Mary’s is a Grade 1 Listed 13th century church, with the core of the current building dating from 1225 – 1250. All that remains of the earlier Norman church is the south door and the font, which was built for the total immersion of infants. To the…
St Mary the Virgin, Lindsell, Essex This is a pretty, but odd-shaped church. It is wider than it is long with the tower in one corner. It is originally Norman with a simple round chancel arch with a large squint on the south side. A large column stands beside the font. The column and the…
St Mary’s, Kingskwerwell, Devon St Mary’s parish church in Kingskerswell was built in the 14th century with additions in the 15th century and is on the site of an earlier chapel. There are only a few examples of graffiti in the church. They are to be found on the effigies of Sir John Dinham and…
St Mary the Virgin, Elsenham, Essex St Mary the Virgin is a charming church, close to Stansted Airport, out of the village of Elsenham and up a single-track lane. Pevsner praises its Norman windows and doorway. It was visited by Violet Pritchard, who noted some text with a face carved into the capital letter. There…
Sutton House, Hackney, London Sutton House is a Tudor house in the middle of Hackney. It was built in 1535 by Sir Ralph Sadler, a privy councillor at the court of Henry VIII. It has been a family house, a school, a centre for WW2 fire wardens, the offices of a trades union and a…
The Guild Chapel, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire The Guild Chapel in Stratford-upon-Avon has strong links to Stratford’s famous son. Not only is it literally across the road from New Place, William Shakespeare’s home, but his father, John, as town bailiff, was tasked with removing the wall paintings as part of the Reformation. He chose to cover them with…
St Saviour’s Church, Dartmouth, Devon St. Saviour’s was dedicated as a Chapel of Ease in 1372, but it may be earlier in date. The church was enlarged in the late 14th/early 15th century and has been repaired and refurbished several times since. It is described as having one of the best interiors in Devon. Features…
St Blaise, Haccombe, Devon Haccombe parish church of St. Blaise, dedicated by Stephen de Haccombe, whose tomb lies here, was built in 1233, probably as a household chapel. Enlarged in the early English style in 1328, it contains a freestone screen, an octagonal font, a three-pointed sedilia, a 19th century chancel screen, tiles bearing coats…
St Mary the Virgin, Henbury, Bristol St Mary the Virgin is a Church of England parish church in Henbury, Bristol. Construction of the present building took place in the 13th century with later restoration work carried out in the 19th century by the Gothic revival architects Thomas Rickman and George Edward Street. The church has…
St Peter & St Paul’s Church, Foxearth, Essex St Peter and St Paul’s Church in Foxearth presents some challenges to the graffiti hunter. For a start, it’s difficult to find. It is not visible from the road. The postcode and GPS will put you on the wrong street anyway. When you do find the correct unlabelled…
St Peter’s Church, Sudbury, Suffolk Sudbury is a town on the Suffolk/Essex border with a rich medieval and Georgian history. There are three medieval churches in the town, with St Peter’s being on the market square. It is in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust and is also used as an art centre. It dates…