ASPECTS OF THE ALIGNMENT AND LOCATION OF MEDIEVAL RURAL CHURCHES by Ian David Hinton being a Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of History, University of East Anglia August 2010 © This copy of the thesis has been supplied on the condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognize that its copyright rests with the author and that no quotation from the thesis, nor any information derived therefrom, may be published without the author’s prior, written consent St Mary’s and St Lawrence’s, South Walsham, Norfolk - two churches in the same churchyard, but aligned 10° differently ABSTRACT This thesis explores the alignment of medieval rural churches and discusses whether their differing alignments have any specific meaning. It also examines the location of rural church sites and the chronology of church creation in relation to the process of settlement nucleation, the topography of church sites and their possible reuse. A survey of almost 2000 rural medieval churches provides the basis for this study. Part I provides a broad context for the detailed consideration of the results of the survey and their significance. It summarises earlier church alignment studies and the issues that they raise; the practice of alignment more generally; studies of the rural church and its place in the landscape; and earlier studies of medieval rural settlement. Part II describes the survey methodology and its basic results, applies the results to the theories advanced in earlier studies and evaluates them in the light of this new evidence. Part III discusses and analyses two significant variations which have been uncovered: the clear pattern of spatial variation in church alignment between the east and the west of the country, and the fact that between two and three times as many churches were built on east-facing slopes as on west-facing slopes. Possible reasons for these variations are evaluated and discussed. It suggests that harvest dates may have been a factor in the decision to build a church and that churches appear to be aligned with sunrise at early harvest completions. It also examines the chronology of the adoption of church sites and the development of local burial in rural areas. The possible relationship between earlier pagan sites and church sites, as part of the process of “Christian substitution”, is discussed, particularly in relation to the use of east-facing slopes. It proposes that local burial sites were adopted in villages early in the settlement nucleation process and that these graveyards provided the sites for the later building of churches, resulting in a bias of churches on east-facing slopes as the middle-Saxon burial sites seem to have sought them out previously. iii CONTENTS Appendices v List of Figures vi Acknowledgements ix Glossary and Terminology x Abbreviations xiii General Introduction 1 PART ONE – CONTEXT Chapter 1 Historiography of church alignment studies 7 Chapter 2 The historical use of alignment 51 Chapter 3 Historiography of church location, church origin and rural settlement 69 PART TWO – SURVEY DESIGN AND BASIC RESULTS Chapter 4 Survey method and basic results 107 Chapter 5 Survey results applied to earlier theories 127 PART THREE – ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS Chapter 6 Variation in church alignment across the country 171 Chapter 7 Relationship between slope and church alignment 215 Chapter 8 Location of churches; adoption of local church sites; development of local burial; Christian substitution 233 PART FOUR – CONCLUSIONS Chapter 9 Conclusions 277 BIBLIOGRAPHY 283 APPENDICES (listed overleaf) 304 iv APPENDICES Appendix 1 Survey results and analysis of Victorian churches 304 Appendix 2 Table of weekly sunrise positions by latitude 324 Appendix 3 Example church survey sheet 325 Appendix 4 Values of magnetic declination 1999-2008 by county 327 Appendix 5 Additional church alignment tables 329 Appendix 6 Sunrise position calculation formulae 330 Appendix 7 Details and additional analysis of sloping sites 331 Appendix 8 Easter calculation formula and east/west Easter dates 336 Appendix 9 Calculations to establish possible Norfolk minster-church sites 337 Appendix 10 Harvest festival details 346 Appendix 11 Alignment of Norfolk Monastic sites 351 Appendix 12 Detailed tables of church alignment and slope 352 Appendix 13 Technical details of digital Norfolk topography analysis 357 Appendix 14 Details of the sites of abandoned Norfolk churches 358 Appendix 15 Site-specific assessment of churches in Norfolk built on sloping land 362 Appendix 16 Comparison of minster-church and other church sites 366 Appendix 17 Churchyard finds in Norfolk 368 Appendix 18 Excel Spreadsheets of: Medieval church survey data (alignments, church and church site measurements, sunrise azimuths) Harvest festival data Victorian church survey data CD inside rear cover v LIST OF FIGURES St Mary’s and St Lawrence’s. South Walsham, Norfolk Frontispiece 1.1 The delaying effect of an elevated horizon on sunrise 13 1.2 Meridiana at Santa Maria Novella, Florence and Palermo Cathedral 15 1.3 St Mary’s, Rydal, Cumbria - built along the slope 30 1.4 St Mary’s, Rydal, Cumbria – looking up the slope 30 1.5 Sunrise positions at St Peter’s, Drayton, Oxfordshire 39 1.6 Methods of correcting for church alignment errors for sundials 46 2.1 Major sun and moon setting positions 56 2.2 The 18.6 year lunar cycle 56 2.3 Remains of a ‘clava’ cairn at Balnuaran, Inverness 63 3.1 Alignments of York Minster and St Michael le Belfrey 73 3.2 Tewkesbury Abbey during the floods in 2007 77 3.3 St Michael’s, Tirley, Gloucestershire, in the same floods in 2007 77 3.4 St Mary’s and hall at North Aston, Oxfordshire 80 3.5 St Nicholas’, Harray, Orkney – next to an iron-age broch 83 3.6 St Mary’s, Breedon on the Hill, Leicestershire – in iron-age hill-fort 83 3.7 Spring below St Ishmael, Pembrokeshire 84 3.8 Spring enclosure in St Lawrence’s, Gumfreston, Pembrokeshire 84 3.9 Spring enclosure in St Lawrence’s (detail) 85 3.10 View of the altar from spring enclosure, St Lawrence’s, Gumfreston 85 3.11 Yew tree in the churchyard at All Saints’, Alton Priors, Wiltshire 88 3.12 Knowlton church and henge 93 3.13 All Saints’ Rudston and monolith 93 3.14 Map of landscape classifications and survey areas 97 4.1 Survey areas 108 4.2 Alignment graphs of urban and rural churches 111 4.3 Church alignment by longitude and latitude 124 5.1 Sunrise azimuth and church alignment 130 5.2 St Mary’s, Reepham and St Michael’s, Whitwell in the same yard 140 5.3 St Andrew’s, Lammas, Norfolk – misaligned chancel 141 5.4 St Hermes’, St Ervan, Cornwall – misaligned chancel 142 vi 5.5 Two-degree misalignment at St Lawrence’s, Castle Rising, Norfolk and at Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, York 144 5.6 Possible variations in nave/chancel alignment 145 5.7 Proportion of misaligned churches 147 5.8 Proportion of misaligned churches with post-medieval rebuilt chancels 149 5.9 Church tower at St Mary’s, Helmingham, Suffolk 161 5.10 Church tower at St George’s, Dunster, Somerset 161 5.11 ‘Frost days’ maps for Cornwall and Shropshire 163 6.1 Scattergram of alignment by longitude 173 6.2 Scattergram of alignment by latitude 174 6.3 Alignment of churches by longitude 177 6.4 Alignment of churches in Norfolk by longitude 178 6.5 Archaeo-magnetic calibration for England 180 6.6 Magnetic declination between 900 CE and 2000 CE 181 6.7 Actual magnetic declination for England in 2002 183 6.8 Approximate magnetic declination for medieval England 183 6.9 Church alignment by age of earliest fabric 187 6.10 Areas investigated for Harvest Festivals 195 6.11 Comparison of harvest festival dates 1870-1899 202 6.12 Harvest festivals in West and East Norfolk 204 6.13 Illustration of calendar drift for harvest times 208 7.1 Possible effect of slopes on church alignment 217 7.2 Alignment comparison by ‘slope-effect’ 219 7.3 Churches on platformed sites by direction of downslope 223 7.4 Churches on sloping sites by direction of downslope 223 8.1 Saxon settlement – Mileham, Norfolk 238 8.2 Saxon settlement – Wellingham, Norfolk 238 8.3 St Mary’s, Bawsey, Norfolk – hilltop site 239 8.4 St Mary’s, Bawsey, Norfolk, view from the east 239 8.5 Middle-Saxon churchyard finds in Norfolk 241 8.6 Saxon settlement – Deben Valley, Suffolk 243 8.7 All Saints’, Ramsholt location map 244 8.8 All Saints’, Ramsholt, Suffolk from the northeast 245 8.9 All Saints’, Ramsholt from the south 245 8.10 Pre-parochial chapels in western Cornwall 248 8.11 Early-Saxon and Middle-Saxon cemeteries in Norfolk 251 vii 8.12 All Saints’, Swanton Morley, Norfolk 261 8.13 View of All Saints’, Swanton Morley from the east 261 8.14 All Saints’, Ellough, Suffolk, on site of ‘pagan temple’ 267 8.15 St Mary’s, Stody, Norfolk, from the east 270 8.16 All Saints’, Fring, Norfolk 270 8.17 St Peter’s, Mundham, Norfolk 271 In Appendices A1.1 St Barnabus’, Swanmore, Hampshire, aligned south east 310 A1.2 St Andrew’s, Kirkandrews, Cumbria, aligned at rightangles to the view from the house 310 A1.3 Alignment of post-medieval churches 313 A1.4 Alignment of post-medieval churches by date of building 320 A3.1 St John the Baptist’s, Barnby, Suffolk (with survey form) 326 (all photographs were taken by the author, unless otherwise acknowledged) viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks are particularly due to my wife, Maggy Chatterley; for her assistance in a good part of the fieldwork; for devoting many of her holidays over several years to this survey; for the enormous improvement in her map reading over the years and her ability to find remote and obscurely located churches, especially when occasionally having to use outdated maps; but mostly for her patience with, and interest in, my obsession.