Byways in British Archaeology

Many years ago, the commanding position which the village church frequently occupies forced itself upon the attention of the writer. As will be shown hereafter, the builders, fo...

Our next task is to review the evidence, collected during many years of inquiry, respecting the mounds which are frequently seen in the neighbourhood of churchyards. Formerly, t...

Having established the proposition that ancient churches were oftentimes erected near older pagan memorials, we are prepared to search for supplementary motives for the determin...

For the practice of holding judicial and civil courts in churches there is, as we have seen, a sufficient explanation in the necessities of the time, and in the simple outlook w...

Orientation, as the word is commonly understood nowadays, may be described as the principle, and practice, according to which a sacred building or other object is set in an East...

When the roaming antiquary stops to watch the sexton dig a grave, he observes, not for the first time doubtless, that the graves all lie East and West. To the person whose taste...

A discussion of burial customs might, in the absence of a little careful selection of material, tend to become rather gruesome. This may be conceded at the outset, but, fortunat...

To weave romance and mystery around the four points of the compass might appear an impossible task, yet this feat was successfully performed by our rude forefathers, to whose pr...

The Southern doorway is somewhat more common than the Northern; where both exist, the Southern is more in favour with the worshippers. On a balance of observations, I find that...

With respect to the facts, there lies at hand a note-book containing the jottings of years, but so plethoric are its pages, that a mass of detail must be correlated and much mat...

It is probable that the story of the horse fascinates more diverse groups of students than does that of any other domestic animal. Truly, too, has it been said, though with a to...

An easy-going reader, with no taste for agricultural inquiries, might admire the above picturesque lines and then pass on, counting as a trifle what is really a most important f...

We are now in a position to see whither the lines of our inquiries converge, and to draw a few general conclusions. Since each chapter has been provided with its own summary, th...