Littlestone wrote:
I'd urge caution in giving them a 'pre-church' pagan providence.
You're definitely wise to be cautious ocifant, and it's certainly easy to get carried away with something as startling as the black puddingstone protruding from the foundations of Broomfield church. Factors other than the puddingstone, in and around the church however, are persuasive. The raised ground that the church stands on. The two sarsens (rare themselves for the area) by the church gate. Roman bricks built into the church walls, folktales of a dragon's footprint and the nearby pond all indicate that the site is of considerable antiquity. In a recent email from someone else who has visited and photographed the Broomfield church puddingstone that person says, "Significant thing is that the stone is not a foundation stone as is often claimed. It is above lower stones and protruding so it seems clear that it is a statement."
We might never know what it's all about, or if it's about anything at all. The Broomfield site however is now up for further examination and comment, and that in itself might be interesting :-)
Slightly off subject but surely there is a pattern to be seen in the over throw/replacing of one religion by another. Patterns are fascinating things, they can be seen in rock art a simple stylistic expression of communication (of what we don't know - there is no key) in the structure of megalithic tombs, the choice of stone, their size, their appearance, built in a similar pattern - just as cathedrals and churches are built in a similar pattern.
Pagan has become an overcharged word but in reality it is just the difference between many different religions and the 'so called true religion'. There is a basic pattern to us humans, we settle near water, we grow food, we have a 'need' for religion (don't know why that is) at all times we conform to the nearest pattern of other social beings.
So a quoted example at Uley Bury ;
"Beneath the Roman temple are the remains of an earlier shrine, a square timber structure in a subrectangular ditched enclosure, constructed in the half century preceding the Roman conquest (AD 43). This earlier shrine itself reused earlier ditches, possible traces of a Neolithic long barrow like nearby Hetty Pegler's Tump. A temple was constructed in stone in the early second century AD, along with other buildings round about. The sanctuary continued to be maintained and modified for almost three hundred years, but showed signs of decline by the final decades of the fourth century. The temple was in much reduced form following demolition or partial collapse. Around the temple other structures too were ruinous or had been demolished by the early fifth century.However the Uley complex was not abandoned, since the site continued in use as a cult place, a rare instance of continuity from the Roman to early medieval periods. An aisled timber building with a semicircular annexe was erected on the site of the temple during the fifth century and was rebuilt in stone in the early sixth century. These structures have been interpreted as a church and baptistery, but the form and parallels of the buildings are uncertain. Carefully buried outside the annexe was the head of the cult statue of Mercury from the temple, which must have been curated for at least a century after the collapse of the building."
Rare maybe but it indicates a reverence for sacred space......
