At 10:29 07/03/00 +0000, you wrote:
> whereas dedications to St. Michael are almost invariably to churches on
hill top sites
Except in Leicestershire where St Michael dedications are almost invariably
*not* on hill top sites (but those Leics churches dedicated to that
lesser-known dragon-slaying saint, Catherine, *are* mostly on hill tops . . . )
The suggestion that St Michael churches are usually on hill tops owes its
origin to John Michell's work in the 1970s and was widely accepted as
'gospel' by various other Earth Mysteries writers in the 70s and 80s. It
gained wider circulation in Broadhurst and Miller's undiluted bunkum on the
St Michael line.
A little-known secret is that various Earth Mysteries researchers who made
an effort to study church dedications in their area show that churches
dedicated to St Michael are no more likely to appear on hill tops than any
other saints. But truth is less infectious than fiction . . .
While I think of it - there is a St Michael church on a hill top in Rutland
- at Whitwell. A spring (presumably the original White Well) is just to the
east of the church and the water runs underneath the floor of the nave and
chancel. It is said that, after heavy rain, one can stand in the chancel
and hear the water running under the floor (I've never been there at the
right time). And the church seems to be aligned to sunrise on St Michael's
day (taking into account the delaying effect of a small hill 'in the way'
close by) i.e. it points 8 deg south of due east-west! - the *only* church
in Rutland that is aligned to a patronal feast day sunrise.
And if you want to really throw some thoroughly fringe ideas into this
melting pot, Whitwell church is on a straight line linking Our Lady's Well,
Oakham, with Empingham church - and this line 'follows' the alignment of the
church. Whitwell church also sits almost mid-way on a line from Oakham
church to Great Casterton church (reputedly on the site of a Roman temple -
although I suspect that this is a popular confusion derived from the small
Roman town being on the site of an Iron Age temple).
Bob
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|