The Orientation of Churches: Some New Evidence

Abstract

We hypothesized that the important early second millennium churches in England may have been aligned using a magnetic compass. If true, the building orientations would enable the post sixteenthcentury geomagnetic observatory records to be extended back several hundred years. Directional data were collected from 143 sites, most of which were constructed between the mid-eleventh and late twelfth centuries, including all of the old English cathedrals and many large church buildings in use today, as well as numerous ruined monastic sites. However, processing the data revealed that the compass was not used to align the buildings. Attempting to explain the data, we exhumed Wordsworth's suggestion that church orientation was governed by the sun's position as it rose above the horizon on the feast day of the saint to whom the church was dedicated. The data obtained in the present study suggest that Wordsworth's basic hypothesis might hold for as many as 43 per cent of the churches if sunrise and sunset positions are considered; sun-based Easter Day and equinoctial day orientations could explain a significant majority of the remaining sites. SUNRISE ORIENTATIONSThe late first and early second millennium churches of north-west Europe are some of the largest and most spectacular constructions man has conceived and erected. An element common to these churches is that they were built in a cruciform shape along an east-west axis so that the congregation faced in the direction of the rising sun. 1 Is there a fundamental control that governed this orientation? This is a question upon which there has been speculation over the last two hundred years but the data collected so far and the conclusions reached have not been definitive. Perhaps the best known statement of early-nineteenthcentury assumptions regarding church orientation was that expressed by the poet William Wordsworth in 1822. In the introductory comments to his Miscellaneous Poem XIII he observed that, Our churches, invariably perhaps, stand east and west, but why is by few persons exactly known; nor that the degree of deviation from due east often noticeable in the ancient ones was determined, in each particular case, by the point in the horizon at which the sun rose upon the day of the saint to whom the church was dedicated. 2 This hypothesis was expanded upon in the text of the poem:Then, to her Patron Saint a previous rite Resounded with deep swell and solemn close, Through unremitting vigils of the night, Till from his couch the wished-for Sun uprose.

News. To the ends of the spectrum; To leap or not leap?; Stripes on Mars; Massive 'starquake'; Giant eye opens in Namibia; How did Halley align churches?; With geomagnetism, probably; Secret seismology.

“…However, considering all of the facts related to Halley, Hawksmoor and the Queen Anne church building programme (Ali and Cunich 2005b), our suggestion must carry some credibility. However, considering all of the facts related to Halley, Hawksmoor and the Queen Anne church building programme (Ali and Cunich 2005b), our suggestion must carry some credibility.…”

Halley and the London Queen Anne Churches

“…Figure 4 shows the alignments determined for the six Hawksmoor Queen Anne Act churches whose construction commenced in 1712–16. In four cases we chose the field measured as opposed to the map‐derived orientation values (Ali and Cunich 2005). The exceptions are St Mary Woolnoth and St George Bloomsbury, where magnetic noise rendered the on‐site readings meaningless (standard deviations of 11.0° and 7.4° respectively).…”

“…How were the orientations achieved? It appears that the buildings were not aligned using the medieval builders' method of the rising or setting Sun as suggested in 1822 by the poet William Wordsworth (1896; see also Ali and Cunich 2001). Ignoring several minor error‐inducing effects, an exact E–W orientation can be achieved by using the rising/setting Sun on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.…”

“…However, no mention of the “traditional” approach is recorded in the Commission's minutes (Port 1986), suggesting that at the time the idea was not known. Also, the buildings were in fact started in June–July 1714 (Port 1986, Ali and Cunich 2005), a time of the year that would have resulted in orientations of ∼52° and ∼65°.…”

The Sunlight and the Hidden Paintings in the Church of San Lorenzo in Torino

“…In several publications, we find discussed the astronomical orientations of churches and cathedrals and the possible alignments of them along the directions of sunrise [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. However, religious buildings can be linked to the sunlight by other optical effects, and these effects that can be evidenced by some research work, such as in [20,21].…”