Milton Abbas Local History Group, Dorset, UK

© Clive Barnes Jan 2025

We are not talking here about the kind of graffiti you can create with a spray can and you find on railway bridges and elsewhere. The graffiti that interests us are the ancient, often unnoticed, inscriptions that have been added to the walls and the choir stalls and other  furniture of churches by anonymous parishioners over the centuries. Nearly every ecclesiastical building of any antiquity, from parish churches to cathedrals, contains at least some of these marks of unofficial commemoration, and in the last decade or so, scholars and amateur archaeological societies across the country have been busy examining and reporting on them. It is simple to do. The only equipment you need is a camera and a torch or other artificial light source. Graffiti can sometimes be faint or worn and the torch enables you to vary the way light falls on it and show it more clearly.

Milton Abbey Church dates from the fourteenth century, with some of the fabric re-used from the earlier church that burnt down in 1309, so it is very likely that over time a number of people might have left their marks there. In fact, the inspectors of the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments in the 1970s noted graffiti in two out-of-the-way places, on the crest of the great fifteenth century reredos behind the altar and on the piers that support the fan vaulting in the South Transept, accessible only from the catwalk below the vaulting. With the permission of Milton Abbey School, who now care for the Abbey, and the help of Anne Litchfield, who works for the school, one of our members, Clive Barnes, decided to take a look for himself, and reports on some of his findings.

Graffiti on the piers of the South Transept catwalk

As suggested by the Royal Commission, there is a great deal of Graffiti here, all of it unseen from the floor below. Perhaps the most interesting historically are those on the piers nearest the great south window. On the east side there is a set dated 1790 and 1791. At the bottom of the pier, there are the initials I H followed by 1791, and towards the top are I D 1790 and a cross, and R S 1791. The I H is not uncommon graffiti in churches and is usually taken to stand for the initials of the first two letters of Jesus in Greek, so are a kind of dedication – “in the name of Jesus.” The dates fit with the restoration of the church by the architect Sir James Wyatt. The other initials, I.D. and R.S., also appear on the first pier on the west side of the catwalk, dated 1791 (and with the S inscribed backwards), and most probably are the initials of men engaged directly in the restoration, with the neatness of I D’s work suggesting he may have been a mason.

There is good reason to return to the catwalk in the future: not only to take a closer look at the other initials and dates recorded there but also to locate the compass inscriptions mentioned by the Royal Commission which I did not find on this visit.

Graffiti on the misericords in the Presbytery

Unmentioned by the Royal Commission, there is a lot of graffiti on the seats of the misericords at the western end of the Presbytery. From the design of the undersides, the misericords may date from the fourteenth century, but the earliest of the dated inscriptions on the seats is 1633. Most the graffiti is initials, some dated and some enclosed in inscribed rectangles. There is also more than one pair of crossed Vs, known in graffiti circles as “Marians,” supposed to represent the Virgin Mary (Virgo Virginum, virgin of virgins). This is very common graffiti both in churches and in secular buildings, where it is presumed to be an apotropaic, used to ward off evil. It also appears in an upended form as a double M, for Maria, and there is an example of this on the misericords.

Graffitists Named in the Abbey Church

Two full names appear in the graffiti. Charles Marsh appears on one the misericords with a possible date of 1721 (or 1727?). His dates are 1706-1784 and he was the son of George Marsh and the grandson of John Marsh, both men were vicars of Milton Abbas and masters of the Grammar School. He appears as a witness on some wills of the time where he says he is a barber. He is a leaseholder in the Woodward survey and was one of those who accompanied Woodward on the 1769 perambulation of the manor. He was one of the first residents of the new village and the uncle of another Milton Abbas vicar, George Marsh of Blandford. The other name is Henry Marshall, 26 April 1818, whose inscription appears on one of the piers of the South Transept catwalk. Henry was a Blandford stone mason and his presence on the catwalk at that date cannot be readily explained, maybe he was an otherwise unrecorded worker, or perhaps a tourist with a handy punch or chisel.

Another look and other possibilities 

Now we know what is there, we need to look more carefully. And other possibilities include other areas within the church, like the bell ringers chamber and behind the reredos; and also the outside walls and St Catherine’s Chapel. There is more to be discovered yet!