Hand and shoe outlines
Some of the shoe outlines in the porch at Bredon Church, Worcestershire.
Outlines of hands and shoes often appear on buildings, shoes much more commonly encountered than hands. I've put them both on the same page as they appear similar but I think there are some key differences.
Shoe outlines are particularly common on lead roofs and stone benches. They are typically just crude outline of someones shoe, sometimes with a division for the heel, occasionally they also include the person's initials and, if you are very lucky, a date. My interpretation of these is that people felt that they were attaching a unique part of themselves to a building, thereby attracting some of it's holiness or sacredness into their lives. This could be seen as bringing luck into people's lives too.
Shoe outlines are particularly common on lead roofs and stone benches. They are typically just crude outline of someones shoe, sometimes with a division for the heel, occasionally they also include the person's initials and, if you are very lucky, a date. My interpretation of these is that people felt that they were attaching a unique part of themselves to a building, thereby attracting some of it's holiness or sacredness into their lives. This could be seen as bringing luck into people's lives too.
Shoe outlines on the lead at Shrewsbury Abbey.
Some of the shoe outlines found high up on the lead roofs of churches (and sometimes other buildings) were probably done opportunistically during promenades. Churches were often the highest buildings in any given area and afforded spectacular views of their surroundings. For this reason it wasn't unusual for people who had friendly access to the parish priest or churchwardens to visit these high places. Carving into lead is very easy compared to scratching into stone and being up on a roof would present a fairly private opportunity to do this.
One of several hand outlines which can be found in Pershore Abbey tower, Worcestershire.
Hand outlines, as I mentioned, are not anywhere near as commonly encountered as shoe outlines. I think that they were normally used in the same way as shoe outlines and here, at Pershore Abbey, the passage they are found in is so narrow that I think the only option would have been hand outlines.
There are many hand outlines in the porch at Little Comberton, Worcestershire (below). An unusually high amount and not found in the same numbers locally.
There are many hand outlines in the porch at Little Comberton, Worcestershire (below). An unusually high amount and not found in the same numbers locally.
Hand outlines in the porch of Little Comberton Church, Worcestershire.
Brian Hoggard, Magical House Protection - The Archaeology of Counter-Witchcraft, Berghahn, 2019.
Brian Hoggard and Alicia Jessup, ‘Llancaiach Fawr Manor: Fortified Against Evil’, The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings Magazine, Autumn 2017 , pp51-5.
Timothy Easton, ‘Scribed and Painted Symbols’, in Paul Oliver (ed), Vernacular Architecture of the World, 1997/8 (four vols), CUP.
Timothy Easton, ‘Ritual Marks on Historic Timber’, Weald and Downland Open Air Museum Magazine, Spring 1999, pp22-30.
Brian Hoggard, 'The archaeology of counter-witchcraft and popular magic', in Owen Davies & Willem de Blecourt, Beyond the Witch-Trials, 2004, Manchester University Press, pp167-186.
Dean, J & Hill, N. 2014, 'Burn Marks on Buildings: Accidental or Deliberate', in Vernacular Architecture, vol 45, 1-15.