Hugh Benson, Church Orientations and Patronal Festivals

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Church orientations and patronal festivals

The Rev. Hugh Benson

The Antiquaries Journal / Volume 36 / Issue 3-4 / October 1956, pp 205 - 213DOI: 10.1017/S0003581500061102, Published online: 29 November 2011

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0003581500061102

How to cite this article:The Rev. Hugh Benson (1956). Church orientations and patronal festivals. The Antiquaries Journal, 36, pp205-213 doi:10.1017/S0003581500061102

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CHURCH ORIENTATIONS AND PATRONAL FESTIVALS

By TH E REV. HU GH BENSON, M.A.

IN Antiq. Journ. xxx (1950), pp. 47—51, the late C. J. P . Cave, F.S.A., contributeda paper on the orientation of churches. He referred to Wordsworth's poem onRydal chapel, written in 1823, and to the note prefixed to it. In this note Words-worth says: Our churches invariably perhaps, stand east and west, but why is byfew persons exactly known; nor, that the degree of deviation from due east oftennoticed in the ancient ones was determined, in each particular case, by the point inthe horizon at which the sun rose upon the day of the saint to whom the church wasdedicated.' The poem that follows describes a vigil on the site the night before,

and in the morning the solemn fixing of the church's position by observing therising sun.

1

It must be admitted that there is no evidence in service books or other recordsthat churches were set out actually in this way. The infrequency of a clear sky atsunrise in England would seem to make it impracticable. Mo reover, if the site hadbeen previously occupied by an earlier church or a preaching cross, the point in thesky where the sun rose on the patronal festival or special saint's day could have beenobserved over a course of years, and marked by some feature, so that the newchurch could be set out on any day without sunshine or ceremony. Th is paper willtherefore be concerned simply with Wordsworth's statement that English churchesfaced sunrise on their patronal festivals. Is it true?

Cave says that his observations give no support w hatever for the idea. He adds,referring to other investigators, that the late F. C. Eeles also concluded that there

1 Wordsworth does not tell us how he came toknow this. It is reputed to be a Scottish Masonictradition. (See Dictionary of Architecture, Archi-tectural Publication Society, 1853, article on

'Orientation' , and W. A. Laurie, History of Free-masonry, 1859, p. 414. These articles, however,both quote Wordsworth in corroboration.) A verymuch earlier mention is to be found, by Silas Ta ylo r(or Domville). Domville was a captain in the Parlia-mentary army, who later devo ted himself to anti-quarian pursuits. He died in 1678. One of his

manuscripts contains this passage: In the days of

yore, when a church was to be built, they watchedand prayed on the vigil of the dedication, and tookthat point of the horizon where the sun rose fromthe East, which makes that variation, so that few

stand true, except those built between [ = at] the

equinoxes. I have experimented some churches and

have found the line to point to that part of the

horizon w here the sun arises on the day of the saintto whom the church is dedicated. ' Du ring the Com-

monw ealth Domville ransacked the cathedral librariesof Hereford and Worcester with great zeal. Hencehe may have got his information from early sources.Th is is quoted from Walter Johnson, Byways inBritish Archaeology, 1912, p. 225. On the otherhand, at his date, Domville might have had contactwith the living tradition as a Masonic secret.

That English churches faced sunrise on theirPatronal Festivals is referred to by John MasonNeale and Benjamin Webb in 1842 as a practice

undoubtedly prevalent in England ' {Symbolism of

Churches by Durandus, trans. J. M. Neale and B.

W e b b , 1842, p. 14, n. 17). Th ey neither tell us the

source of their information nor mention Words-worth. Nor do they say how far they really assuredthemselves it was a fact. Th ey note, however, thatDu rand himself knew nothing of the custom, in facthe expected all churches to face due east like St.

Peter's, Rome, and complained that a few faced sun-

rise at the solstices instead.



206 T H E ANTIQU ARIES JOURNA L

was no support for it in Scottish churches, and that T . W . Shore agreed for H am p-shire. Cave also mentions tha t W . Airey too disposed of the idea.

In his paper Cave tells us that he measured 642 chu rches. H e takes as his firstexample his churches that are dedicated as St. Pe ter's . H e had measured 6 2. Theirorientations rang ed from 54^° to 1 15 °. Th e position of sunrise on the feast of St.Pete r and St. Paul (29th Jun e) was, he says, 52^° (latitude 5 1 0 N.) in the thirteenthcen tury . Thu s not a single church was less than 2° off the required direction. Mostwere very wide of it. Cave's other examples gave similar results.

M y own investigations I have carried farther. Firstly, for example, St. Peter hastwo other festivals besides 29th Jun e. Th ey are 22nd F ebruary, the festival of hisTh rone , and 1st Au gus t the festival of his Chains . In order to discover if a churchfaced sunrise on one of these days rather more accurate calculations must be made.It is of little use just to measure the ch urch 's orientation . Th e local horizon is ofgreat importance, and mu st always be measured too. In some cases it might make

a difference of 20 0 to the position of local sunrise . All deductions based on anassumption that every horizon measures o° o' will be false. Actually, o ° o ' is rare,and only found where churches are on exposed sites. It is most unfortunate thatCave never measured his horizons. Nor did Eeles, Shore, Airey, or other investi-gators I know.1

Calculation of sunrise positions must be made for the sun's upper limb, not itscen tre. Due allowance must also be made for the refraction of ligh t. Ne ither ofthese is very much, but in England their combined effect is a matter of i£° in theposition of sunrise. Th ere is lastly the Julian calendar, which means that the positionof sunrise on any particular day changed from century to century. Every churchmeasured must therefore be dated.

Taking these several factors carefully into consideration I have measured the237 churches and chapels of Oxfordshire that certainly are either medieval them-selves or have m edieval foundations, and have calculated in each case the days theyfaced sunrise. Among these churches there are 25 now dedicated as St. Peter's.Eight of these faced sunrise on a festival of St. Peter, to the very day:

Broadwell (D) . . . . 29th Ju neBroughton Pogis (D) . . . 1st Aug ust

1 e.g. J. Rigg, 'T h e Orien tation of Ki ng's had ma de allowance for this hill he might have found

College Chapel' (Camb. Antiq. Soc. Journ., vol. i his chu rch facing sunrise on St. Salsa's Da y after all.(1 85 3) ). Rigg calculated the chapel's sunrise day to But in any case the basilica was built in the middlebe 22nd M ar . T h e chapel is indeed on level grou nd, of an ancient cemetery, all the tombstones of whic hbut it is not on an exposed site, so the local horizon lay in a particular direction, including that of St.wo uld not be 0° o' . Dista nt treetops, etc., in such Salsa herself, which was preserved intact and made

cases always make it at least ° high, and this would the centrepiece of the new church. In such circum-bring the sunrise day to 25 th M ar . stances the churc h could hardly be expected to run

See also S. Gsell, Les Monuments antiques de skew-wise across the tombs, wha tever the reason.FAlgirie,\\, io ,o i, p . 124. Gsell may have had his I obtained this reference to Gsell's book fromrefraction, etc., correct, but he disregarded his local J. D . Davies, The Origin and Development of Earlyhorizo n. W ha t is more, his book contains a photo- Christian Architecture, 1952, p. 83. Davies rejectsgraph ofhis chu rch, the basilica of St. Salsa at Tip asa, the idea of Patron al Festival o rientation on theand this shows an enormous hill to the east. If he strength of this isolated and unsatisfactory example.



CHURCH ORIENTATIONS AND PATRONAL FESTIVALS 207

Dorchester Abbey . . . . 2 2 n d FebruaryDrayton-St.-Peter . . . . 22nd February

Ho ok Norton (nave) . . . 1st Au gustSouth Newington . . . . 2 2 n d FebruaryWilcote . . . . . 2 2 n d FebruaryWolvercote . . . . . 29th June

This is admittedly less than half, bu t is nearly a third , and very different fromCave's nil.

Th e two churches in this list marked (D) call for special note. Broughton Pogisis a Norman church with an Ea rly Eng lish chancel. Th e Norm an nave was built toface sunrise on 1st Au gust. W hen the Early E nglish chancel was built a centuryand a half later, the sun was rising on 1st Aug ust about i° farther to the south. T henew chancel runs therefore in this new direction. Th is is the reason for the crooked

chancel.A somewhat similar thing seems to have happened at Broadwell. The parts ofBroadwell church are difficult to date, since it was much rebuilt in the thirteenthcentury, but on analogy with other churches it seems that the chancel preserves atleast the foundations of an older church. So at Broadwell it is the chancel tha t hasthe original direction, and the nave the corrected d irection. Th is again is thereason for the crooked chancel.

There has been a great deal of speculation on the reason for crooked chancels,from the sentimental—that they represent our Saviour's inclined head on the cross,1

to the practical—that they are due to the carelessness or ignorance of medievalbuilders.

2 I think it will be found, on the contrary, that in possibly every case they

are due to a deliberate change of orientation in parts built at a later date . Th ereare 8 7 crooked churches in O xfordshire, and in very nearly every case the differenceof orientation between the two parts of the church is simply the difference requ iredby the change of the position of sunrise due to the use of the Julia n calendar. Feastdays in the first half of the year (15th December to 15th June, Norman calendar)required a change to the north, and feast days in the second half (15th June to 15thDecember) required a change to the south. In jus t a few cases the orientation seemsto have been changed for other reasons in addition to the requirements of the Juliancalendar.

That these changes of orientation are deliberate is further emphasized by thefollowing observation. Th e new part of the church, with its new direction, is notjus t added clumsily to the old. It is usually joined , rather ingeniously, according to

a definite design, the purpose of which is to have the effect of chang ing th e d irectionof the church as a whole. One such design is found where the chancel is new, andanother where the nave is new. In the first case the two axial lines will be found to

1 The Symbolism of hurches by Durandus, trans. 1914, p. 249 ; C. Mu nro Cautley, Norfolk Churches,

J. M . Neale and B. W ebb , 1842, p. lxxxii. I949> pp- H - I 7 - Cautley pictures the mason2 e.g. Cave him self at the end of his article, setting out the site of a churc h by scraping his foot

p. 51. See also A. Hamilton Thompson, Th e along the groun d, as a farmer might set out the siteGround Plan of the English Pa rish Church, 191 1, of a rick.p. 13 1; F. Bond, Dedications of English Churches,



208 TH E ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL

cross one another in the centre of the nave. In the second they will be found to crossone another in the centre of the chancel. Th e whole church appears to have been

swung round, as it were, on one or other of these two points. T he diagrams infigs, i and 2 will make this clear.

4Crooked Churches

1. The orientation of an ancient church changed by means of a new chancel.2. Th e orientation of an ancient church changed by means of a new nave. In both cases the change is

to the south. T he new parts are shown in black.3. A simple change of direction at the chancel arch. Eithe r the chancel or the nave may be new.4. The axial lines parallel—no change of direction.

The chancel arch is in most cases, it seems, rebu ilt so as to stand centrally astridethe new axial line, at right angles to it.Th ere is indeed a third type of crooked chu rch frequently found. It cannot be

said to have the effect of chang ing the direction of the church as a whole. Th e axiallines simply meet at the chancel arch, and only the styles of architecture in the firstinstance will indicate which half of the church has the original direction and whichthe correction. Th is type is illustrated in fig. 3. Broughton Po gis is like this.Broadwell is of the type shown in fig. 2. Fig. 1 is the type most commonly found,perhaps half the crooked churches met with are of this plan.



CHURCH ORIENTATIONS AND PATRONAL FESTIVALS 209

I have added fig. 4 as a wa rnin g. Th ere are quite a nu m be r of church es like this.To an unpractised eye they can be mistaken for the type shown in fig. 2.

There are also a few churches which have a small part of an older church incor-porated into them—perhaps only a few feet, but enough to show the differentdirection of the earlier one. In Ox fordshire this can be seen at Bicester and Bo di-cote. T he same sort of thin g, but on a very grand scale, is found at Oxford Ca the -dral. Cardinal Wolsey's new college, with new chapel planned but never built , isset out on a line turned nearly 5 0 north of the line of the old priory church, now thecathedral. T h e cathedral seems to incorpo rate very old foundations, w hich giveit its direction,

1 and to have faced sunrise on 25th March when it was originally

built . D ur in g the passage of six or seven centuries the position of sunrise on 25 thMarch had changed by near ly 5 0 . Hence the line of the present buildings.

To return to our Peter churches, the remaining 17 churches that did not facesunrise on a festival of St. Peter faced sunrise on the following days:

A lvescot . . . . . . . 14th Septem berA s ton Row a n t . . . . . . 3 r d A pr i l (o r 29 th A ugus t )Bucknell (D) 3rd Ap rilCassington . . . . . . . 15 th A u gu s tCaversham (D) 25 th M archC heckendon . . . . . . . 10th M a rc hCornwell 25th M arc hDe dd ingt on (D) . . . . . . 10th M ar chH a n b o r o u g h ( D ) . . . . . . 3 r d A p ri lH anw ell (D ) . . . . . . . 29 th A u gu s tGreat Haseley (D) 29th Au gus tM arsh Baldon (D) . . . . . 15th A ug us tO xfo rd , S t .- P et er -i n -the- E as t ( D ) . . . 1 5 t h A ugus tShiplake 25th M arc hSteeple Aston 25th M arc hS toke L y ne . . . . . . . 14 th S eptem berSwalcliffe . 25 th M a r c h

As before, the sign (D) indicates a crooked ch urch w ith two alignm ents of differentdates, each correct for its own century.

T h e above days are typical of what is found for the cou nty as a who le, my totalsfor Oxfordshire being:

44 churches 25 th March (The Annunc ia t ion)34 „ 14th Septem ber (H oly Cross)

1 S. A. Wa rner, Oxford Cathedral, 1924, pp . 20, rected I do not know , unless the shrine made this

21 . T h e foundations discovered to the east of the inadvisable. No te that Oxford Ca thedra l is an in-Lady Chapel and nor th Choir Aisle belong either to stance wh ere our argum ents could be reversed, for

the original or to the second Saxon chu rch . W ha t- the orienta tion req uires a Saxon foundation line,ever the date of the east wall itself, the chapel lies on else the sunrise day wo uld be 22 nd M ar . not 25 ththe line of this Saxon building, as the plans show it. M ar . Dorc hester Abb ey is anoth er instance whe reSo does the No rma n church. W hy it was not cor- very ancient foundations are indicated.



210 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL

27 churches 15th August (The Assumption)12 „ 22nd August (Octave day of the Assumption)

about 20 „ 3rd Aprilabout 20 „ 29th August (St. John Baptist)14 „ st August (St. Peter)13 „ 29th September (St. Michael)12 „ 10th March or near11 „ 22nd February (St. Peter)

5 „ 29th June (St. Peter and St. Paul)or 24th June (St. John Baptist)

11 „ in various smaller groups or isolated cases14 doubtful, or difficult to measure, including five college chapels which

may not be in the scheme.

It will be seen that apart from 3rd April and 1 oth M arch these days are all festivalsof Holy Church—a very significant fact. It is also interesting to see the greatpopularity of the A nnunciation, the Assumption with its octave day 22 nd August,and Holy Cross, accounting between them for nearly half the churches ofOxfordshire.

I obtained this list of sunrise days first of all from my crooked churches, for theyconveniently reveal which half of the year their sunrise day is in. When dealingwith my straight churches I have then taken it that the same sunrise positions in-tended the same days, although of course every straight church has an alternativeday in the other half of the year. The 3rd of April and its alternative day in theNorman calendar, 29th August, are both found among crooked churches, and in

about equal numbers. I have therefore for my totals divided these straight churchesequally between these two dates.Early calendars

1 often enter THE RESURRECTION against 27th March, as tradi-

tionally the first Easter Day. As 3rd April is seven days later it would be LowSunday on this reckoning. Did churches with titles like Holy Trinity, or ChristChurch, possibly keep their festivals on this day? I do not know. Nor have I anyidea what 10th March was.

An interesting church in the list, included among the isolated examples, is St.Swithun's church, Merton. It has an ancient north wall to its chancel, a featurefrequently found. W he n this wall was built, presumably part of an older church, itfaced sunrise on 2nd July. The 2nd of July was then St. Swithun's Day.

1 Whenthe nave was built in the thirteenth century, and the chancel enlarged, St. Sw ithun'sDay had been changed to 15th July, his Translation. The difference between thesunrise position on these two days in July, including the change of century, is about5° . So the Early En glish nave has this new direction, and Merton is an outstandingexample of a reorientated church with 5

0 difference between its chancel and its nave.

The plan is that shown in fig. 2. Note also that its dedication is still St. Swithun.

My list of churches and chapels in Oxfordshire is, I believe, the complete list. Itincludes various ruined chapels whose dedications are not now known. There are,

1 F . Wormald, 'English Church Calendars before 1100 {Henry Bradshaw Soc vol. lxxii).



C H U R C H O R I E N T A T I O N S A N D P A T R O N A L F E S T I V A L S 21 r

however, 224 churches with known presen t dedications. In 39 cases the chu rchfaced sunrise on its saint's day. Th is is not a large portion— only about one in six.But it must be remembered that a number of these present dedications are almostcertainly not medieval. At the Reformation dedications seem to have been fre-quently forgotten.1 Furth ermore, every time that a church was substantially rebuiltit had to be reconsecrated, and a reconsecration was always an opportunity for achange of dedication. So even medieval dedications may often not be the originaldedication of a church.

Oxford Cathedral, now known as Christ C hurch , was previously called St. Frides -wide's, and is so called in Domesday Book, but St. Frideswide's father, we are told,built the first church 'to the Holy Trinity, the Immaculate Virgin Mary, and AllSaints'.

2 Its feast of title would presumably be Lady Day , 25th M arc h. It faces

sunrise on 25th March—that is, in the eighth-century Julian calendar.Lichfield Cathedral is another example. Bede men tions two churches at Lic h-

field: St. M ary's and St. Pet er's.3 Th e present dedication of the cathedral is TheBlessed Virgin Mary and St. Chad. It was, however, built on the site of the S t.Pete r's church. Its orientation is to sunrise on 1st Au gust (St. Pete r's D ay)— thatis, in the twelfth century, with later correction in a later century.

Another example is Rochester Cathed ral. In 1542 the cathedral was rededicatedin the title of Christ and the Blessed Virgin M ary . Bede, however, gives theoriginal dedication as St. Andrew, which was indeed its medieval dedication. Thefoundations of the original church still exist, facing in a very southerly direction. Ifthe small map sold to visitors has been correctly drawn it is several degrees awayfrom th e position of sunrise on St. An drew 's day. Th ere is, however, no doubtabout the great Norman church which took its place. Standing at 1270—an even

more southerly orientation—it faces the exact position of local sunrise on 30thNovember (St. Andrew's Day) in the Norman calendar.These examples seem to me extremely significant. It is possible that there are a

very large number of churches like these, where the sunrise day preserves theoriginal dedication of the first church on the site.

It is true that we occasionally have records or legends of the foundation of achurch, perhaps after a vision or message that indicated both th e site and the dedica-tion. But it is impossible in any particular case to be sure even then that th ere was

1 K. E. Kirk, Church Dedications of the Oxford James's church is rather amusing. T he place need

Diocese, 1946 , p. 18, mentions Brize No rton as one not be na me d, b ut the rector told m e his churchinstance among others. H ere the village took its had always been called St. James after an ancient

name from the Bruns family which once owned the well, popularly known as 'Jim's well' . T h e well,place, not, as supposed, from St. Brice. I imagine how ever, tur ned out to be compa ratively rec ent,Stanton-St.-John is another, for the Sinjohn family nam ed affectionately after a previous rector wh o had

once owned the place. T he re are also instances like dug it. St. James was therefore dropp ed as patronChipping Cam pden in Gloucestershire. Th er e the saint of the church, but not before a large picture ofchurc h was taken as being St. James's, after the local him in painted glass had been placed in the eastfair held on that day. T ho ug h often a reliable guide, win dow .

it was not so in this case, as the medieval dedication 2

S. A. W arner, Oxford Cathedral, 1924, p. 4.is now known to have been St. Mary (see Diocesan

3 Bede, A History of the English People (1955,

Calendar of recent years). Another one-time St. Penguin edn., p. 207 ). For Rochester, see p. 103 .



2 1 2 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL

no previous church already on the site, which, in some way or other, was originallyincorporated in the building of the new church, and determined its general direc-

tion, and sunrise day.Merton has already been mentioned. Th ere are three other churches in Oxford-shire where the orientation has been changed by 4

0 or 5

0 after the lapse of hardlymore than a century—Alkerton, Beckley, and Great M ilton . Th is difference is fartoo much for the requirements of the Julian calendar, and must indicate a change ofday. In all three cases it is a change between 22nd Aug ust and 15th August—theoctave day of the Assumption and the Assumption itself. This is not a change ofsaint, but, like Merton, is merely a change of day, and would seem to be meaning-less unless the day was something like the Patronal Festival. The re are two 'problem'churches in Oxfordshire—Brightwell Baldwin and Hook Norton—which may bea change of saint.

Outside the county I have mainly sought churches of special interest, such asvery ancient churches like St. Piran's in Cornwall, and hill-top churches likeBrentor, Glastonbury Tor, Mount St. Michael, and such. St. Pir an 's faces an earth-work on the horizon two miles away, marking the point where the sun rose in theseventh century on 15th Au gust. Brentor had a Lady Day orientation in all prob-ability, and Glastonbury an Assumption orientation. M oun t St. Michael in Pen-zance Bay was 3rd April. The little Michael chapel on Rame He ad, Cornwall,faces the conical peak of the Mewston es five miles away. Th is peak marks the pointon the horizon where the sun rose on 29th September (St. M ichael's Day) in thefourteenth century, the date of the chapel. Th is chapel is known to have been St.Michael's from the first, for contemporary records state that Mass was permittedthere only on Mondays and on St. M ichael's Day itself.

1

I have measured quite a number of churches in different parts of England, andthey suggest that what I have found in Oxfordshire is broadly typical of England asa whole.

SELECTED SUNRISE POSITIONS IN THE NORMAN

P U R I F I C A T I O N ( 2 n d F e b . )

S T P E T E R ( 2 2 n d F e b . ) .

l o t h M A R C H . . . .

A N N U N C I A T I O N ( 2 5 t h M a r . )

3 r d A P R I L . . . .

S T JOHN BA PT. (24th June)S T PETE R AND PAUL (29th June)

S T P E T E R (1st Aug.)

ASSUMPTION (15th Aug.) .

OCTAVE OF ASSN. (22nd Aug.) .

S T JOHN B A P T . (29th Aug.)

HOLY CROSS (14th Sept.) .

MICHAELMAS (29th Sept.)

Lat. 55°

H54°103°

924°82 °

76 °

454°46°

584°664°

7 i °76 °864°

964°

54 °

115°

103°

924°82 °

764°

464°47°

59*°67°7i4°764°864°

964°

53°

H44°1024°

924°82 °

764°

48°484°6o°68°

72°

764°864°964°

C A LE N DA R ( T R U E H O R I Z O N S )

52°

114°1024°

92 °824°

77 °

49°494°6 i °68 °

724°

77 °

87 °96 °

5 ' °

1134°102°

92°824°

77 °

5o°504°6x4°684°

73 °77°87 °96°

50° N.

" 3 °102°

92 °824°

77 °

504°5 i °62°6 9 °

73 °

77°87 °

96°

4° decrease

4° ,

.

° inci >4 ° ,4° ,

4° ,

ease

Notes in Rame parish church.



CH UR CH OR IENTATION S AND PATRON AL FESTIVALS 213

T hi s table of selected sunrise positions is for Nor ma n and Tra nsitio nal buildings. Fo r EarlyEnglish buildings subtract the figure in the last column, which is one day's movement (or addit, after 15th J un e), tw ice this for Decorated buildings, and three times for Perpendicular.

Churches should be measured with a prismatic compass to the nearest degree, or half degree ifpossible. Stoves and iron m ust be carefully avoided whe n using the compass, as they deflect t heneedle. Some churches are very magn etic and difficult to measure inside. Several measurem entsfrom different places should always be taken as a precaution.

T h e mag netic north is slightly different in different parts of Eng land . A m ap of the variation sshows the isogonal lines, as they are called, running south-west to north-east at an angle of about20° with the meridian. A t the point 50° N . on the Meridian of Greenw ich, 195 5, the variationwas 8° 15 ' W . Elsew here allow an increase of 1 5' for each degree of latitude no rth of this, and33 ' for each degree of longitude west of this. Also, deduct 9' for each year after 195 5.

A rough means of measuring the local horizon is by extending t he hand a t arm 's leng th, withthe fingers closed. T h e four fingers cover about 5

0, tha t is, i \° for each finger. T h e sun moves to

the south about 2° in England for each i | ° it rises in he ight. So if a hill, for example, is tw o

fingers high, measured from what is taken t o be the lev el, the sun will hav e travelled 40

to the southby the time it appears over this hill.

It must be remembered that the indefinite skyline of treetops on level ground is normallyabout 2° hig h, and the sun has travelled 3

0 to the south before it appears. If, how ever , the c hur ch

is on a slight rise, or the ground slopes away gently, the sun will have travelled only 2° or °.Actua lly o° is only found in exposed sites. O n a real hill-top site, wi th low distant ho rizo n, th esun will rise i° earlier than shown in the sunrise tables. Chalk downs seem to have been treelessin medieval times, and also a considerable area around any castle; otherwise hills were wooded,and should be measured to tree-top height.

For a methodical work , sunrise tables for every day in th e year are a necessity, and also hori zontables, whic h, like the sunrise tables, vary with the latitude. I measure my horizons wit h anAbney spirit level.

Hugh Benson, Church Orientations and Patronal Festivals

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