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Littlestone L
Littlestone Jan 3, 2006 11:53:02
Replying to nigelswift

<i>Woke up wid a terrible cold so going back to bed in a minute :-(</i>

>We could spend our declining years just wandering around doing geophysical prospecting and becoming famous.<

Sounds good Nigel; two old codgers with a second-hand geofizz in one hand a mug of zider in t'other - maybe we could get our own TV prog as well :-)

moss said, "...I'm not sure that Christianity stamped its foot, it's just that the early monks went round and placed their sermons within the old pagan grounds." Not, always (and not wanting to get into Circles under Churches again either) I've always been puzzled why the church at Avebury was built on lower ground <i>outside</i> the circle - why would they do that I wonder?

Rhiannon said, "...on the subject of churches - surely you could say the same (that there's a high density) about any number of places - most tiny villages in England have a church." Yes they do, but the churches at Winterbourne Bassett and Winterbourne Monkton are not in villages - they're hardly even hamlets, but they are very close together. The same applies to the churches at Alton Priors and Alton Barns - they're in adjacent fields, and it seem a bit strange to have two churches so close to one another serving a very small community. Rhiannon also said, "And you're bound to use whatever stone there is to hand so if there are big sarsens just begging to be used, you'd use them would you not? Yes, but the <i>way</i> they're used is sometimes very weird. Again, not wanting to get onto Circles under Churches, the stones at the back of Pewsey Church have been placed in a very strange and very deliberate way - why?

StoneLifter said, "Perhaps a better approach is to assume that churches were used in a very similar way to how the circles had been previously." Yes I agree with you (except for the church at Avebury) where a very clear choice was made to separate church from circle - I wonder why that was?

Peter said, "Best book (the only book) dealing with the location of churches from Roman Britain to Victorian Britain is "Churches in the Landscape" by Richard Morris. This closely researches and explains WHY churches are WHERE they are." Will, add that to my library Peter. Meanwhie, got an unread copy of P&G's Avebury downstairs - good time to dig it out.

P PeterH
PeterH Jan 3, 2006 12:49:03
Replying to Littlestone

Hope the cold is soon a thing of the past, LS!

Without repeating the "Circles under churches" thread, it might be useful if we compiled a list of sites where church and megalith are in close juxta-positon. We might have three lists - one of definite co-existance like Rudston and Knowlton, another of close association - Avebury and Stanton Drew and then the third where a church has been built using the fabric of an earlier secular building such as Bradwell-juxta-mare in Essex.

Then we could compare the tiny number of sites on these lists with the enormous number of megalithic sites which are NOT associated with churches.

Beware of false clues though - there is a megalithic slab in the churchyard at Winterbourne Monkton. However it was robbed from a nearby barrow to bury a local vicar! That church was not built because the megalith was there first. http://www.megalithic.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=a312&file=index&do=showpic&pid=8522

I can certainly see the desire to believe that Christianity incorporated pagan circles and stones in their churches in order to subjugate the "old religion" The veneration of trees, stones and springs continued and there are specific written records to prove it - there are specific written prohibitions and punishments. However, ask yourself if there is any evidence that Neolithic stones and circles were used for religious purposes at the time of the introduction of Christianity? Is there even any evidence that they were still being used for ritual in the Iron Age? The Romans had their pagan and Mithraic temples, some may have been churchified. Roman writers tell us that the Druids preferred groves to temples, the Germanic tribes also preferred the open air.

Rhiannon is right I feel - the Anglo-Saxons and medieval society largely ignored the stones and found them to be a nuisance and obstacle to the plough. A few were said to be the work of giants or of Woden, but the rest were simply ignored or used as a source of building materials.