Fig. 9. Ruins of Maplescombe church, Kent. View from the North-West. The ruins are unenclosed, amid a field of cabbages. The interior space is overgrown with brambles and elder bushes, but the semicircular apse can be detected on the left.
Fig. 10. Sketch plan of the ruins of Maplescombe church, Kent, showing the positions of the sarsen stones.
human bones and other relics[119]. This area was presumably the graveyard, and may have been originally unenclosed, but with this hypothesis we shall deal in a later chapter. Parenthetically, it may be explained to the non-geological reader that a sarsen is a hard mass of rock, which was once part of the Bagshot Sands or the Woolwich and Reading Beds, and which, having resisted denudation, remains on, or near, the present surface of the soil. The earliest record of a church at Maplescombe is A.D. 1291, but the building may, perhaps, be of Norman foundation, and the largest stone may possibly be a sacred relic which existed previously on the present site. The worship of “stocks and stones” died hard, and it is at least conceivable that the church builders adapted one or more megaliths to form an altar. Further than that we cannot go, seeing that sarsens are fairly common in the locality. Examples of churchyard sarsens are abundant in Kent. Mr Harrison informs me that there are specimens at Kemsing Halling and Trottescliffe; in the last-named village, the stone is built into the church wall. At Meopham, there are several blocks just outside the churchyard, but, as the ground is merely fenced in, we have again, doubtless, an instance where the demarcation between consecrated and unconsecrated soil is of modern date. Still further records from Kent have been supplied by Mr F. J. Bennett. The ruins of the churches at Punish and Paddlesworth (near Snodland) enclosed in each case a large sarsen; the nave of the dismantled church at Dode contains a good-sized specimen; several other blocks stand just outside the graveyard wall at Birling[120]. In passing, it may be observed that the other Kentish village named Paddlesworth, near Lyminge, contains a font, of which the base is a massive round stone, evidently of great antiquity.
We now examine other counties where the Tertiary beds are represented. Crossing the Thames, we find in the churchyard of Ingatestone, Essex, a large sarsen, which was formerly a part of the foundation of the church[121]. At Pirton, in Hertfordshire, a huge mass of conglomerate, or “puddingstone,” consisting of rounded flint pebbles cemented by a siliceous matrix, supports the North-Western buttress of the church. The block, as determined by my friend, Mr James Francis, F.G.S., measures 5´.6´´ × 2´.7´´ × 1´.4´´ above the ground. At the base of two other buttresses on the North side are further lumps of conglomerate, each about 3 feet in length. These “puddingstones” are vulgarly believed both to breed and to increase in size, and the superstition is put forward to account for a block of this material which projects from the foundation of Caddington church, Bedfordshire[122]. It is worthy of notice, in passing, that a pre-conquest church existed at Caddington.
Our observations would be incomplete were they limited to the Tertiary area of South-Eastern England. In Devonshire, built into the chancel wall of North Molton church, we have a large, heavy stone, which is said to be composed of material foreign to the district[123]. At Branscombe, in the same county, where the church bears marks of considerable antiquity, a rough pillar, about seven feet long, doubtfully described as a coffin lid, lies in the churchyard. Just outside the churchyard wall of Whatley, Somerset, is a huge rounded sarsen, and another is to be seen near the cross-roads 50 yards distant. When the London Geologists’ Association visited Whatley in 1909, a doubt was raised whether the stones were true sarsens. Some authorities pronounced the material to be millstone grit, which could be obtained a few miles away; while, on the contrary, no Tertiary rocks occur in the immediate district. In Cornwall, there was discovered, under the collapsed Western tower of Constantine church, a large, rounded boulder of Cataclew stone, weighing a quarter of a ton. The nearest locality from which this stone can be obtained, says the Rev. R. Ashington Bullen, is a quarry which is 1¼ miles distant in a straight line. Mr Bullen believes that the boulder marked a meeting-place for ceremonial observances in pagan times, and that consequently it was assigned a place of honour in the Christian building[124]. It will be recalled that the ruins are adjacent to a kitchen-midden ([p. 31] supra). At Bolsterstone, near Deepcar, in Yorkshire, two large stones lie in the village churchyard. One of them has been adapted for receiving another stone by mortising. On the high ground above the church is a cairn known as Walderslow, and it is believed that the churchyard stones may have had connection with this monument. The diligent searcher will not fail to discover many other examples of these natural megaliths, but he will doubtless preserve considerable detachment of mind, and be wary in the acceptance of theories. The scarcity of suitable rocks in many localities, the difficulties of transport,—whether accomplished by ox-drawn sledges or by canal barges,—the saving of time, and, far more important, the lessening of expenditure, are factors which must receive full weight. Nevertheless, while maintaining due reticence, we shall find ourselves continually wondering whether the probabilities do not point to site-continuity. The pronounced liking for megalithic monuments exhibited by the primitive Britons must have strongly influenced all future comers for many a century. All analogy suggests that Mediaeval folk were still sufficiently pagan to treat such relics with a kind of “hyperdulia.” A sacred stone, or group of stones, may well have been embedded in the walls of the church, or set up as an altar, in order to propitiate those who gave up the old faith with reluctance.
When we examine megaliths which were indubitably placed in position by the labours of men, we find ourselves on surer ground. The building of churches near such memorials as these cannot always have been at haphazard. Moreover, we should bear in mind that all the evidence is not now producible. The hand of the spoiler has been busy, and the results have been lamentable. Utility has been the common plea for the removal of many ancient monuments, but other motives have also been at work. The famous “Longstone” which formerly stood a little to the East of St Mabyn church, in Cornwall, was broken up and carried away in order “to brave ridiculous legends and superstitions[125].” Happily, the well-known menhir in Rudstone churchyard, near Bridlington ([Fig. 11]), remains with us. This pillar, which is composed of fine-grained grit, stands about 4 yards from the North-East angle of the building. Its height is 25 feet, and it is believed by some authorities that an equal length is concealed underground. The monolith was first fully described by the Rev. Peter Royston, in 1873. The present Vicar of Rudstone, the Rev. C. S. Booty, informs me that Mr Royston’s measurements are accurate. The conjecture has been made that the village took its name from the menhir. This may well have been the case, but what the first syllable of the name means is another matter. The word is commonly said to signify Rood-stone. The Domesday form Rodestan (cf. 13th cent. Rudestone; 14th cent. Ruddestan, Rudston, etc.), leads Mr Bonner to suppose that a personal name, Rod, Rodd, or Roda, is indicated. If the monolith bore an incised or carved cross, Mr Bonner would admit the rendering “Rood-stone.” But it should be remembered that a simple pillar might have been called a cross, and that it may have been accepted as a preaching cross. To consecrate an existing stone would save much labour. On this view, “Rood-stone” may actually be correct. Countryfolk do not care for etymology or archaeology, but they have not been remiss in attributing the presence of the stone to diabolic agency. What concerns us at the present is, that the site of the church was probably selected because the spot had already some significance to the older inhabitants of the neighbourhood. The whole district of Rudstone is rich in prehistoric remains[126].
The “sacred chair” of Bede, at Jarrow, is considered by Professor Rupert Jones to be an ancient sacred stone, which has been chiselled into shape by modern masons[127]. The Coronation Stone, in Westminster Abbey, has also perhaps a notable genealogy, but its deposition in its present quarters took place long after the foundation of the Abbey, and hence the relic is not illustrative of our theory.