Once this had been photographed and mulled over, we couldn’t work out what these lines were?
Instructions to visitors? Beware of the dog? There were many possibilities.
So we contacted Matt Champion who has written a book on Medieval Graffiti, specifically those found in churches.
His reply was very interesting.
In his opinion :
“The text inscription is particularly lovely, and exactly what we’d expect to see in a property of this age, albeit a rare survival. These mottoes, known as ‘posies’, were common decoration in C16th and C17th houses. They were sometimes carved or painted, but more commonly were on paper that was pasted to the wall. Writing in 1573, Thomas Tusser even published listed of ‘posies’ for different locations in the house in his book ‘Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie’. A very lovely find.“
This was unexpected and wonderful.
Matt suggested using a raking light to see if we could pick up the missing line, so more photographs were taken and these showed up some missing characters.
This left us reading the text as follows:
“If thou comst in before them
and let that blessing then ascend
But if at the back door take that …
thou com…”
Matt identified the other marks near the inscription as a definite masons mark and a possible apotropaic mark.
The double headed arrow was identified as a mason’s mark, as it was made with chisels.
The small but very clear W mark could be a random initial but it could also be a Marian mark, often used near entrances to a property like windows, doors and even fireplaces.
Some apotropaic marks have been called witch marks.
These marks were seen as a way of protecting the building from bad spirits and ill intent.
