Byways in British Archaeology

As might have been anticipated, the disparities are not so great as Taylor’s statement implied, because, on the whole, the village-names run in pairs; a North keeps company with a South. With respect to North and South, there is indeed a slight preponderance in favour of the sunny quarter. The Wests, likewise, outnumber the Easts, from which we may infer that a sheltered situation was operative in determining the choice of a site. The coombe which opened towards the West or South, and the hill-slope similarly situated, would attract the first settlers.

The place-names which consist of two separate words, one of which was a prefix indicating position, revealed somewhat similar preferences. Of this class, comprising such names as North Cheam and West Ham, there were 241 Wests to 181 Easts, thus confirming the first list. Then came a surprise; 164 Norths against 133 Souths. There are, it is true, names like North Cotes, with no corresponding South Cotes[874], but this also holds good conversely. On the other hand, it is probable, either that these double names which have not coalesced represent comparatively recent parochial divisions (e.g. East and West Horsley, Surrey), or that one name is a modern imitation or duplicate of the other (e.g. East and West Wickham, Kent, several miles apart, the first being a later geographical distinction). If any support is lent to Taylor’s dictum therefore, it could only come from a consideration of names originally given to genuinely ancient settlements, and to obtain these names a very accurate and intimate study of thousands of local documents would be necessary.

Though not strictly concerned with the Cardinal Points, an old custom which bears on the question of sites may be noticed here. This is the pastoral habit, adopted by primitive shepherd folk, of living, during summer, in booths or tents set up on elevated pastures, and of descending, in winter, from these grazing grounds to the plains, where there were substantial houses, each having its ox-stalls and other outbuildings. The “summer-houses” may be preserved for us in many place-names, as in Somerscales and Summer Lodge, Yorkshire; Somersby, North and South Somercoates, Lincolnshire; besides Somergranges, Somersall, Summerley, and many others in other counties. With these places, one may compare the Norwegian settlements, known as saeters, which exist to-day. There are also, in England, sets or seats (= summer abodes), such as Moorseats, Outseats, Runsett, and Thornsett[875]. The names indicative of winter sites are not so common, perhaps because, representing permanent settlements, they required no distinctive term; that is to say, it was the temporary hut which called forth the need of a separate name. Against twenty “Summers” there are opposed only nine “Winters,” reckoning the seventeen Winterbournes once only: it is questionable whether this last name is an instance in point, since it probably denotes a site where an intermittent stream was wont to appear after rainy seasons. From the nature of the case, we should expect no “Summerbournes.” Of the other Winters, one or two, like Winteringham, may be reminiscent of a Saxon family name. The late Mr T. W.

Shore considered that not only the various Winterbournes, but also Winterton and Winteringham, signify “Wendish” settlements, Windr being an old name applied to Northern nations[876]. This idea seems too fanciful and strained, the more so, because, in the case of Winterbourne, a simple explanation based on familiar physical phenomena is at hand.

Returning to our proper subject, we find a curious superstition which merits detailed examination, namely the general antipathy of country folk to burial on the North side of the churchyard. This strange aversion must have come within the experience of most antiquaries and folk-lorists. During the peregrinations of many years, the writer has collected a large number of instances illustrative of the belief, and a few of these will be submitted.

So recently as the year 1904 there was buried, in a quiet Surrey churchyard, the body of a well-known public man who had poisoned himself shortly after receiving a sentence of penal servitude. The newspapers duly recorded that the interment took place on the North side of the churchyard, and that a specially adapted service was read, but no one seemed to notice the significance of these details. An explanation, as we shall see, is nevertheless discoverable. A few years earlier, in 1899, during the discussion of a Burials Bill, then before the House of Commons, it was alleged that in most village churchyards there remained burial accommodation sufficient for some time to come. Against this plea, it was urged that the space still available was usually situated on the North side of the graveyard, and that there was a rooted objection among villagers to burial in that quarter. The Home Secretary replied that he had never heard of the prejudice, and a somewhat general incredulity as to its existence was revealed among the Commoners. Thereupon a correspondent, writing to Notes and Queries, clinched the argument based on superstition by quoting the inscription on a tombstone in the graveyard of Epworth, the village of the Wesleys. The epitaph ran thus:

Such a wish was no new, crazy fancy, for earlier instances are on record. From an account published in 1657, we learn that Benjamin Rhodes, steward to Thomas, Earl of Elgin, requested to be buried on the North side of Malden churchyard (Bedford), “to crosse the received superstition[878].” Combining the last two incidents, we may infer that the Northern portion of the churchyard was little used, and that neglect was due to its ill-repute. So, then, in the remark made by Edmund Burke, “I would rather sleep in the Southern corner of a country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets[879],” the indication of the Southern position is not mere rhetoric. Let us proceed to examine some further instances, in order to show that our generalization is sound.

At Winterton, a village not far from Epworth, at the time of the controversy of which mention has been made, the burials on the North side had all taken place within living memory. It was a matter of doubt whether “a dozen gravestones, over fifty years old, could be found in as many parishes in [that] deanery on the North sides of churchyards[880].” Another Lincolnshire village, Springthorpe, had no Northern graves; while, at Saltfleetby All Saints, so recently as 1880, as the present writer can avouch, not a single stone or grave existed on the North side, though monuments were closely crowded on the South side. Dr Alfred Gatty, who was vicar of Ecclesfield, Yorkshire, for more than fifty years, once stated that, in the early nineteenth century, there were practically no interments in the North yard of his church. In the year 1823 a clergyman was buried in that portion, and the evil reputation was banished[881]. Morwenstow, Cornwall, Hawker’s beloved “Daughter of the Rock,” formerly exemplified the same superstition[882]. The prejudice was especially strong in Norfolk[883]. It was also very prevalent in the neighbouring county of Suffolk[884]. At Newbourne, in that county, while the graveyard was filled on the South, East, and West, the turf had long appeared unbroken on the North. “The bishop had never walked on it,” so ran the story, and all endeavours to break down the superstition proved fruitless for many years[885]. In churchyards situated in the Border Counties, on both banks of the Tweed, the prejudice is barely removed even at the time of writing.

John Brand (A.D. 1744-1806) discovered that, in his day, the belief still pervaded many “inland and Northern parts,” but had been “eradicated from the vicinity of the metropolis.” He quotes numerous authorities to prove that the prejudice was also rampant in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales[886]. Another eighteenth century writer, none other than Gilbert White, recorded that the Southern side of the churchyard of Selborne had “become such a mass of mortality that no person [could] be there interred without disturbing or displacing the bones of his ancestors.” However, “two or three families of the best repute” had begun to bury on the North side, and White had hoped that, by degrees, the prejudice might wear out[887].

Frequently we encounter evidence which, without directly alluding to the superstition, implies its existence. A curious bequest made at the close of the seventeenth century will serve as an illustration. Archbishop Tenison having presented a burial ground to the parish of Lambeth, it was deemed necessary, in order to lessen the number of Southern interments, to charge double fees for that portion of the yard[888].

Additional testimony, though inconclusive, is gleaned from an examination of the position of the fabric with respect to the churchyard. As already stated, in many instances the North yard is all but non-existent. This is the case at Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex; Caterham and Weybridge, Surrey; Littleton, Middlesex; Barnet, Hertfordshire; North Cockerington, Lincolnshire; Upper Beeding, Falmer, Street, Bishopstone, and West Dean, in Sussex; Manningford Bruce, Bradford-on-Avon, and Amesbury, in Wiltshire. The list could be greatly extended. At the last-named village there were no gravestones in the North yard at the time of my visit in 1901. Mr J. T. Micklethwaite has pointed out that, when an aisle was added to Wakefield parish church during the twelfth century, it was built on the North side, because at that period all the burials were on the South side[889]. One is compelled to regard this line of evidence as only partially satisfactory, not because the instances are insufficiently numerous, but because cases can be cited where the South yard, not the North, is very narrow and insignificant. At Whitchurch, Oxfordshire; Alciston, Sussex; Hatfield Peverel, Essex; and Chertsey, Surrey, the burial ground is cut off almost sheer with the South side of the church. Nevertheless these instances are much fewer than those in which the North yard is so treated, and to this extent the theory stands good.

More satisfactory confirmation of the belief is afforded by the actual disuse of the North graveyard in many parishes. A reference to Fig. 21 (p. 77 supra) will show that, a century back, scarcely a headstone was to be seen on the North side of Chislehurst churchyard, yet we know that numerous examples existed on the South side. One may visit village after village and find that the tombstones on the North side are all erections belonging to the last half-century. The writer’s notebook abounds with instances of this kind, but it would serve no purpose to give the catalogue here. Two or three striking examples may, however, be quoted. At Faringdon, or Farington, Hampshire, where Gilbert White was once curate, there is a large strip of graveyard towards the North, yet, on visiting the place in 1899, I found not a single tombstone in that quarter. At Yateley, in the same

county, the Southern area has been enlarged, though the Northern portion was still partly available. Strangest of all was the case of Eversley, which is not far distant from the last-named parish, and which is always associated with the name of Charles Kingsley. Here, at the date just mentioned, an additional plot of burial-ground on the opposite side of the road had been consecrated, yet the Northern part of the old yard remained unfilled. Whatley, in Somerset, had only four graves on the North side in 1910, and all of these were recent. The North yard was, indeed, small, yet it still had accommodation, in spite of which fact the churchyard had evidently been enlarged on the South. Widdicombe, Devonshire, had no Northern tombstones in 1906, and Denton, in Sussex, but one stone on the North side in 1910. In the same year, I found no stones on the North yard proper at Norham, Northumberland; a group of elms occupied the space enclosed by the Northern boundary and an imaginary line continued from the East wall of the church (Fig. 67). In 1911, no North stones existed at Ford, Sussex, and Abbotsham and Countisbury, Devon.

A note of warning must now be uttered. The antiquary who is bent on examining this question will doubtless be guided, in the absence of documentary proof and of modern excavations, by two kinds of visible evidence: the level, unbroken condition of the turf, and the age of the tombstones, if these be present. A perfectly even area of turf is, as we shall see, not distinctly conclusive against the existence of former interments, since it may only imply carelessness in the raising, or in the preserving, of any possible grave-mounds. The evidence deduced from tombstones, too, must always be judiciously weighed. The absence, or the modernity, of the monuments is a fair test, if applied only to the period during which such memorials are known to have been erected. But the investigator will be on his guard against giving what Bishop Butler, in fine phrase, termed “an otiose assent.” If the level state of the sward agrees with absence of gravestones, we may infer, either that no burials have taken place, or that they have been of a peculiar and exceptional nature. The wearing down of undisturbed mounds by atmospheric denudation may be left out of consideration, as being an unlikely occurrence.

Speaking generally, the upright headstone and the outdoor altar-tomb go back no farther than the middle of the seventeenth century[890]. It has been surmised that existing churchyard monuments which exhibit an earlier date may have been, in some cases, originally set up inside the building[891]. But genuine outdoor stones are found which belong to the late sixteenth century at least. There are two dwarf headstones on the South side of Branscombe churchyard, Devon, dated 1570 (? 1579) and 1580 respectively[892]. Headstones belonging to the fifteenth century have been recorded from Thrapstone, Northampton; Lavenham, Suffolk; Blyborough and Kirton-in-Lindsey, Lincolnshire; and Loversall, Yorkshire[893]. An allusion to the upright stone occurs in Hamlet:

Where flat slabs occur in the churchyard, they are frequently a century earlier than the upright stones. Specimens of these early “ledger stones” may be seen in the church porches at High Halden, Kent (1583), and Wellington, Somerset (1589). There seems to be little doubt that this form of monument is much older as a class than the vertical, lettered stone. The ledger stone is a familiar object on the floors of churches, as a Mediaeval relic, and it is, no doubt, this kind of monument which is referred to as having been sometimes ejected from the sacred building[895]. There is strong reason for believing that rude, uninscribed wooden crosses preceded the upright headstones.

Working by the light of these facts, the searcher will discover that there is ample proof of the unpopularity of the North graveyard for three centuries past. And it would appear that there is good ground for the supposition that the unpopularity was as great, or even greater, during the long period which elapsed before stone monuments came into general use. These conclusions are based on the cumulative evidence of individual instances, but some remarkable exceptions to the rule demand due consideration.

Frequently, where one finds the oldest headstones on the North side, a probable reason can be advanced. Thus, in Norfolk, a county where the superstition is common, the three contiguous parishes of Garvestone, Reymerstone, and Thuxton, have the majority of burials on the North side. The explanation may be that the main entrance to the church, in each case, is by the North porch. Expressed otherwise, the North yard is the portion most traversed by the villagers on their way to the services[896]. Burlingham St Andrew has the North side of the yard well filled, while, so late as 1899, there were no burials on the South side. This is the more extraordinary, since the parishioners used the Southern porch as an entrance, and the local territorial family, the Northern[897]. We might conjecture, though there are no data at hand, that this was a case like that of Selborne, described by White, in which some highly-placed person or persons set a bold example, and helped to destroy the tradition. At Martin Hussingtree, near Worcester, all the burials, down to the year 1853, were on the North side, but it is noteworthy that the only entrance to the church was from that quarter[898]. Similarly, at Oystermouth, Glamorganshire, the graves were thickly clustered to the North of the church. A few only lay at the East and West; and not one on the South, but here, again, the sole access to the building was from the North[899].

Numerous other instances have come under the writer’s own notice, tending to show that the objection to Northern burial is partly neutralized by the position of the church door, especially in those cases where only one door exists. Should there be two or three entrances to the church, the one most employed seems to be connected with the burial customs—the Western entrance to a smaller degree than the other. Needless to say, it is not the position of the doorway which primarily provoked the belief, though it may have modified the practice. As a matter of actual statistics, it will be found that, where there are two or three ways of approach, the South door is the one most used.

Is it a coincidence that the South is the prevailing quarter for the churchyard yew and the ancient cross, and that this sunny side has other superstitions attached to it? Mr Harry Hems asserts, with truth, that churches and churchyards generally lie to the North of the roads which give access to them (cf. p. 335 supra), and he seems to imply that some cases of preference may be explained by the position of the roads which lead to the fabric[900]. But surely, this is mistaking the effect for the cause. The problem is: why should the churches have been built on the North side of the road? Had they been erected on the opposite (South) side, worshippers would have been admitted from the reverse point of the compass (the North). Some early pagan belief influenced the choice of position; casual or arbitrary circumstances, including, occasionally, the disposition of roads and pathways, may have held the belief in check. The road, assuming that it existed before the church, could scarcely have influenced the position of the latter, in the absence of superstition. While we admit that Mr Hems’s rule is fairly safe, it must not be forgotten that, where churches are built to the South of the road, the pathway often winds round the Western tower to give admission by a South door—an important aim with the builder.

Candour now compels us to notice a few records, which, in view of the particulars already given, seem inexplicable. The church of Ashby-de-la-Zouch is said to be built so near the South wall, as to indicate that the North side was clearly intended for burial[901]. Streatley, in Berkshire, is one example out of a fair-sized list, exhibiting a large North yard with very old stones. The ancient church of Swanscombe, Kent, had, on the whole, its oldest monuments towards the North, but the South doorway had been blocked by masonry. In most instances of this kind there is doubtless some circumstance, or series of circumstances, which would explain the departure from custom. Let us pause a moment to consider the exact importance of these exceptions.

The headstones, it will be remembered, carry us back only a few centuries. But, so far as these memorials reach, they tell overwhelmingly in favour of the superstition. Twenty years ago, this evidence was much more patent to the eye. A very general exception, however, must be made of the town churchyards, in which the old tombstones are often found evenly distributed over the available space. Several reasons may be adduced for this non-observance of the usual practice. The town church, as a rule, stands centrally in its graveyard; it is commonly approached by several alleys and paths, leading from a thoroughfare or market-place; it is frequently cruciform in plan, with North and South doors, and this design, wherever met with, seems to have had some effect in counteracting the fears of the ignorant. Above all these reasons, must be set the fact that populous districts would soonest lose touch with the superstition, so that, even before the era of headstones, the belief retained but a comparatively feeble foothold among the inhabitants of towns. The argument from monuments fails in cases such as these. We must seek the tradition in the rural districts, and turn back to a time when it was more firmly held. We shall then see that the present exceptions, numerous as they are, cannot invalidate the general practice. They represent what Professor L. C. Miall, writing on a vexed question in botany, calls “negative exceptions.” I venture to repeat his witty illustration: “A wooden leg is used to enable a man to walk when he has lost his natural leg.

If you saw a one-legged man walking with a pair of crutches, and no wooden leg at all, would that shake your belief in the motive for using wooden legs[902]?” The “negative exceptions” which we have been studying may, indeed, testify to a weakening of tradition, or occasionally, to its apparent local non-existence, but they do not abolish it, or change its purport one whit. How it chances that, of two adjacent parishes, the present-day evidence shows the belief at work in the first, but seemingly unknown, or in abeyance, in the second, is a matter upon which we can only speculate. The puzzle reminds one of the difficulty which meets the palaeontologist when he strives to explain why one line of animal descent stops, and remains fixed, while another continues to develop; why creatures which seem to be completely adapted to their surroundings become extinct; why one species or genus is taken, and another left.

We now go behind the testimony of the tombstones, and meet some apparent contradictions. When the turf on the Northern side of a churchyard is broken up, for the first time, as the sexton thinks—since there are neither mounds nor tombstones to serve as “frail memorials,” bones are sometimes discovered. At Bottesford, Lincolnshire, though the North yard had been wholly unused until our day, yet when graves were actually dug, traces of former burials were revealed[903]. The churchyard of Swinhope, in the same county, yielded stronger proofs. Seven or eight very old interments, closely grouped, were found; in one case there was a coffin formed of loose slabs of chalk[904]. The late Canon A. R. Pennington, of Utterby, again in the same county, told the writer of his surprise when bones were thrown out of the first grave made towards the North of his church. It is a fair inference that no mounds had been raised over the earlier interments. Further instances could be added, but these will suffice. The details concerning the Swinhope interments are peculiar, especially the finding of the chalk coffin. These particular burials may point to the building of the church on a pre-Christian site. The other examples, however, have a different interpretation; namely, that the Northern portion of the churchyard was formerly reserved for the bodies of murderers, suicides, excommunicated persons, and still-born or unbaptized children[905]. That the custom is not yet obsolete is attested by the case already described on p. 341 supra, which is one of many.

Parochial histories supply the facts necessary for the confirmation of the tradition. Brand cites the case of a burying-ground in Edinburgh, where the North was reserved for the unbaptized and suicides. The graveyard belonged to the Quakers, and thus is of especial interest[906]. Another record tells how, a century ago, the body of a murderer who had been executed at Lincoln was carried to Swine, over the Yorkshire boundary, and was there interred on the North side “as the proper place in which to bury a felon[907].” To the Irish peasantry, the North is the “wrong side,” and we have a contemporary account of a murder in the year 1786, which incidentally states that the malefactor was buried on the “wrong side” of Turlagh churchyard[908]. Miss Gordon-Cumming found that, among the Hebrideans, the belief was full of vitality. A young Englishman, who had committed suicide, was carried head foremost to a grave on the North side of Portree church, and was there buried, with his head towards the East, instead of towards the West. Even this qualified reception into consecrated ground sometimes meets with opposition, from fear that a suicide so buried will cause the herrings to desert the coast. The suspicious fishermen have been known to dig up a corpse from the kirkyard, secretly, by night, and to re-inter the accursed thing either on the shore, at low-water mark, or on the summit of a high mountain. Burials of this kind have taken place on the top of Aird Dhubh, and also on a mountain on the border of Inverness and Ross-shire, two years after the original sepulture[909].

Still bearing on this question, it has been suggested that a part of the churchyard, presumably the Northern, was formerly left unconsecrated for the burial of such persons as have been enumerated. Burn, in his History of Parish Registers, expressly states this as a fact, and gives, as an example, “the single woman’s churchyard,” in Southwark, where the dead bodies of the inmates of the licensed stews were buried[910]. This part of the graveyard was frequently known as the “back side[911].” The West of England tradition taught that this area was designedly left unconsecrated to serve as a playground for the village children. To speak more generally, the North was reserved for the village sports during the period when these were permitted in the churchyard. And, although there seems no clear proof that butts for the use of archers were set up in the churchyard itself, the ground immediately adjoining the North boundary was so used. Such a strip of land, of some length, known as “the Butts,” lies to the North of the churchyard at Beeston-next-Mileham, in Norfolk[912], and at Coleshill, in Warwick. The theory of non-consecration, though not for the purposes just named, receives some support from Durandus, who observes that to be buried on the North side is to be buried “out of sanctuary[913].” And through all the centuries which have rolled away since the date of this learned ecclesiastic, the country folk have shunned the North side, which lies “benighted in the midday sun.” There was always a dislike of lying alone in death.

The accustomed path, leading to the South door, was trodden by the assembling worshippers[914]. Under the shadow of the graveyard cross or the sombre yew the country folk could stop to whisper a prayer. In far-away times, Gregory the Great had taught that it is more profitable to be buried in the churchyard than in the distant cemetery, because, in the former case, the survivors may frequently behold the sepulchres as they enter the sacred building, and may put forth their petitions. (Cf. p. 262 supra.)

The distant cemetery, mentioned by Gregory, seems oftentimes to have formed an incentive to church-building in its neighbourhood. It would appear that the earliest Christian graveyards, like the cemeteries of the heathen, were often unenclosed. Being hallowed spots, a preaching cross would be erected near the graves. The setting up of a cross, the “truly precious rood,” must precede the actual building of the church, according to the decree of the Emperor Justinian (A.D. 530). This act of consecration was the work of the bishop of the diocese. Durandus notices the claim of some churchmen that a space of thirty feet around the church ought to be set apart for burial, while others contended that the space actually enclosed by the circuit of the bishop was sufficient[915]. Though the cross may at first have been portable and adapted only for temporary use, yet a permanent symbol was frequently employed. The heathen Saxons are said to have had a rooted dread of entering an enclosed place of worship, lest they should be the victims of supposed magical rites[916]. An enclosed graveyard was also a decided innovation. So late as the reign of Canute, one class of building, the “feld-cirice” (= field-church), was unprovided with a graveyard. As time passed away, however, boundary hedges were planted, or walls were built around to form a burial-ground. The sacred garth, as well as the building, became a sanctuary, with its “benefit of adjuration,” and its right of appeal to trial by ordeal.

The actual enclosure of spaces around the churches dates from about the year A.D. 750. (Cf. remarks on the early cemeteries in Chap. VI.) The practice must have been loosely observed, for we find, down to the year A.D. 1603, statutes and canons repeatedly enforcing the law[917].

Chance excavations sometimes attest the early laxity of custom. Outside the churchyard wall of Kirby Grindalythe, in the East Riding, stretching towards the West, are many ancient interments. This fact seems to indicate, either that the Norman church originally stood in an unfenced portion of the hillside, a part of the cemetery being excluded when the wall was built, or that the open wold had been used for burials, Christian or pagan, before the church was erected[918]. Gilbert White was of opinion that the churchyard of Selborne was once larger, and had extended to what was, in his day, the vicarage garden[919]. Maplescombe church, the ruins of which were referred to on p. 38, seems to have never been properly fenced in from the fields. The retired churchyard of Branxton, in Northumberland, which lies within a bowshot of Flodden Field, has at least two features which are illustrative of our subject. The present churchwarden, Mr John Rankin, the representative of a family which has long held that office, informs me that the graveyard was formerly unfenced, save on the South side, where a thorn hedge separated it from the road. On this side, also, there is a narrow strip of land which contains no graves, and which, Mr Rankin asserts, has, through an oversight, never been consecrated. (Cf. p. 343 supra.) The churchyard at Norton, near Evesham, was unenclosed, except on the Eastern side, down to the year 1844. It stood in a grass field which formed part of the church glebe, thus illustrating Wordsworth’s lines, descriptive of an Oxfordshire parsonage: