The time has come to address the most thorny and contentious issue in alignment research – the question of site relevance.
If one accepts that the aligned sites were set out in prehistory, why is it that ‘modern sites such as moats and post-medieval churches occur on some alignments with considerable accuracy? For example, St John’s Church at Merrow is not only on a significant ten degree bearing line in the pattern but also at a multiple of the Druid Mile. It is known that there are some examples of site continuity from prehistoric times onwards; there is at least one example of a Norman motte being constructed over the top of a bronze age barrow and instances of medieval churches having been built next to prehistoric standing stones and barrows.
It is now widely believed that many churches are built on the sites of pagan shrines or temples, themselves evolved from ritual sites deep in prehistory. Evidence for this is the oft-quoted letter of AD 601 from Pope Gregory to Abbot Mellitus suggesting that existing pagan temples should not be destroyed but converted for Christian worship. However, there is some evidence that this happened; much more research is needed to determine the origins of the huge number of medieval churches in our landscape.
The following is an excerpt of the most important parts of Pope Gregory’s letter in an easily understood translation:
Tell Augustine that he should be no means destroy the temples of the gods but rather the idols within those temples. Let him, after he has purified them with holy water, place altars and relics of the saints in them. For, if those temples are well built, they should be converted from the worship of demons to the service of the true God. Thus, seeing that their places of worship are not destroyed, the people will banish error from their hearts and come to places familiar and dear to them in acknowledgement and worship of the true God.
Further, since it has been their custom to slaughter oxen in sacrifice, they should receive some solemnity in exchange. Let them, therefore, on the day of the dedication of their churches or on the feast of the martyrs whose relics are preserved in them, build themselves huts around their one-time temples and celebrate the occasion with religious feasting. They will sacrifice and eat the animals not any more as an offering to the devil, but for the glory of God to whom, as the giver of all things, they will give thanks for having been satiated. Thus, if they are not deprived of all exterior joys, they will more easily taste the interior ones. For surely it is impossible to efface all at once everything from their strong minds, just as, when one wishes to reach the top of a mountain, he must climb by stages and step by step, not by leaps and bounds….
Mention this to our brother the bishop that he may dispose of the matter as he sees fit according to the conditions of time and place.
Moats are generally included in the ley hunters’ list of relevant sites, although there is little evidence that any construction on these sites occurred before the middle ages. There are two, perhaps three, moated sites accurately positioned on the alignments that do not seem to be coincidental, and further research is necessary.
An archaeological dig at Shrewsbury supporting site continuity.
The church, known as the Church of the Holy Fathers, now belongs to the Greek Orthodox Church, which bought it for the nominal sum of £50 from the Church of England in 1994 and saved it from dereliction. It was previously called St John the Baptist and dedicated to St Milburga in pre-Reformation times. It stands on the edge of a housing development site in Sutton on the edge of Shrewsbury in Shropshire.
Local Anglicans had held services there once a year, but it had not been a regularly functioning parish church since before the First World War and had stood in the corner of a farmer’s field, effectively used as a barn for storage.
Carbon dating of a wooden post extracted from the dig had shown it was first placed in the ground in 2033 BC – a time when the ancient Egyptians were still building Pyramids. Archaeologists expected the post to turn out to be Anglo-Saxon, so they were shocked to discover it dated from the late Neolithic/early Bronze Age period instead.
The dig has given a fuller picture of the ancient history of the site at Sutton, Shrewsbury. Its findings correspond directly with earlier archaeological excavations, carried out on nearby development land to the east of the tiny Medieval church in the 1960s and ’70s, which unearthed evidence of Bronze Age and Neolithic structures. It wasn’t then known that these were connected with the church site.
Back then archaeologists discovered burial mounds and cremations, slots for standing stones and two rows of Neolithic post holes and a ditch, known as a cursus, which they interpreted as a processional walkway. It was aligned east to west, extending towards the current late 12th/early 13th-century church.
The recent archaeological dig now shows that the prehistoric site extends to a larger area to the west of the church and that the building is built directly on top of both a previous Anglo-Saxon church and prehistoric structures. The current 10-metre long church itself was discovered to have originally been three times longer and to have once had transepts.
“The 15-inch section of post we found was sticking up into the Medieval foundations. It appeared to have been deliberately incorporated,” said archaeologist Janey Green, “We thought we had found a Saxon post that formed part of an earlier church amongst Medieval foundations, but the radiocarbon dates have shocked us all! What we actually have is a sacred site dating back over 4000 years. It appears the current Medieval church is built over the site of an ancient pagan burial ground that’s been in use from the Late Neolithic period through to Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and through to today. These findings appear to indicate that this special place has been recognised and honoured by our ancestors from at least 2,000 years before Christ until the present day. To put it into context – all this was being built and used at the same time as the ancient Egyptians were building pyramids for their Pharaohs and writing in hieroglyphics”.
“What makes this site different is the continuity of ritual practice in one form or another. It predates the Basilica of Rome. It is well known that Christians liked to build churches on pagan sites, but this goes back to the Neolithic, and this time we have the archaeological evidence so we can rewrite the history books and add to our knowledge”.
There are other British sites of Christian churches known to date back to prehistoric origins. The best known is probably Knowlton Church at Cranborne Chase in Dorset. A Norman ruin built within a Neolithic henge.
“The earliest sacred development on the site was probably a stone circle with a cursus, a processional walkway. It’s tremendously important to fully understand what is going on here and another phase of excavation is desperately needed. Christian use of the site probably goes back to the late 7th century when the manor of Sutton was given to St Milburga, the founder and abbess of Wenlock Priory sometime between 674 and 704 AD”.
Church priest Father Stephen Maxfield said, “Who would have thought that this little church, stood in the corner of a field and written off as a ‘shed’, has turned out to have a history of great significance. It’s quite possible that Milburga herself visited this location,” he said. “From the moment we first saw this building as a crumbling ruin, full of farmer’s clutter, we thought it was a very special building. Now we know that it is and that it is unique. It is a place of transcendence and healing”.
Other significant finds from the archaeological dig include a carved Saxon stone from an archway, the remains of what is thought to be an Anglo-Saxon apse, a prehistoric worked flint and a Neolithic stone counting disc. Some unusual animal burials were found, but these are thought to be Medieval and have yet to be dated.
Ms Green found two coins, minted from between 1625 and 1634, amongst rubble from a wall collapse and believes this could indicate that two-thirds of the church collapsed during that period or slightly later, possibly during the English Civil War, 1642 to 1651.
The dig was started because a new housing development of 300 homes is currently being constructed next door to the church. The first phase of the dig has been completed, but archaeologists believe there is more to be found in the area.
There can be little doubt that some of the sites listed in this research are coincidental, and it is for this reason that I have worked to a much greater degree of accuracy than any other similar research. The elimination of error is paramount to this work.
Read the full article via shropshirelive.com at: http://www.shropshirelive.com/2017/05/18/archaeological-dig-discovers-shropshire-church-is-earliest-known-sacred-centre-still-in-use/