Waldringfield’s ring of Churches

W.G.Arnott ¹⁾Place Names of the Deben Valley by W.G.Arnott suggested in Place Names of the Deben Valley that the locations of local Churches relate to pre seawall access by water and the transport of stone fonts from Norfolk.

Furthermore, a 1999 River Deben Association magazine contains an article by David Aldred describing a circular arrangement of other Churches around Waldringfield at a radius of two old Suffolk miles.. ²⁾http://www.riverdeben.org/magazine/ This was rediscovered whilst searching for articles relevant to Waldringfield in the excellent online archive.

Taken together these ideas seemed to merit an enquiry especially as they involve history, maps and astronomy. Could Waldringfield be the nexus of some religious cult perhaps going back to a pre-Christian era? Perhaps it was an observation point for ancient astronomy? Questions to consider are:

Are the Churches in a circle around Waldringfield?
If so who did this, when, how and why?
Was the distance significant?
Were there any significant alignments of the individual churches, between them or to other places?

Some work to reconstruct how the area would have been before the sea walls were built was done to test Arnott’s claim. Pre sea walls our local Churches are between 250-750m from boat access and seem to be built at the nearest location that is between 15-20m above sea level with no real attempt to go to higher ground.  Arnott’s claim is valid. Does this indicate that they were located there to minimise movement of heavy materials which had been transported by water?

Common suggestions for the siting of Churches include being at the highest point in the parish, convenient for the Lord of the Manor and also perhaps being on pre-Christian sites. An English Church is also generally built on an east-west axis with the altar at the east ³⁾https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientation_of_churches.

Our Church is next door to what we believe was the site of the Manor house of Waldringfield Hilton. The Church is near where the water would have been but it could have been built on a higher site nearby. It was used as a triangulation point for the construction of Hodskinson’s map of Suffolk 1783 and from this, we can see that there was a line of sight, from the tower to the other triangulation points of Levington, Otley, Woodbridge and Orford.

Next, we consider the circular arrangement. An analysis of the height profile around the circle with locations of sites shows that the sites selected are not at the highest points on the circle. These are about 500m anticlockwise from Martlesham and 500m clockwise from Brightwell. All of these Churches could have been built at a higher point nearby but outside the circle. If alignments between any two sites were significant then probably a better set of high points could be chosen. The sites are not equally spaced around the circumference at, say, cardinal points. There do not seem to be any reasons why Christian churches should be in a circle and there are no other known examples. We think that our church is probably 13C and presume that the other churches are of similar age. The only other similarity in the area seems to be a circle with a radius of 4754 yards centred on Bucklesham which passes through only Kirton and Waldringfield which does not seem of any significance with only two circumferential points. So, the four churches are arranged in a circle around Waldringfield to within about one per cent. Arnott would have been tickled pink to know about this circle of Churches.

The diagram shows the four circumferential churches.

The map above shows Ordnance Survey 5m contours and water coverage based on Environment Agency flood maps (which gives a slight exaggeration). More precise data is on the History Group website see below.

There was a 5C urn found on the site of the church so maybe Waldringfield was a religious site in earlier times. Any alignments could also be pre-Christian. People have been here for millennia and not just the 1500 or so years of Christianity. If this was a prehistoric alignment, then as there is not much stone in this area whatever it was would be likely to be made of wood. Given the evidence of Megalithic structures elsewhere, it seems quite conceivable that people several millennia ago could have done this if they so wanted.  So this could have been done any time in the last few millennia the only obvious reason being to provide alignments.

David Aldred states that the radius is 3660 yards (3294m).  The distances from Waldringfield, Church east end measured using maps and online tools, gives 3299 metres or 3608 yards. The four outer churches are within 1% of this radius. Using the number of churches in Suffolk and county area gives the result that, on average, churches should be about 4130m from their neighbour. Density was most probably higher in our part of Suffolk so they could be nearer. With our group of five churches, the distance from Waldringfield is 3294m which is slightly closer than what we might expect.

Aldred also relates the radius to two Suffolk miles and mentions the scale on Robert Morden’s maps having three types of a mile. We beg to differ with his analysis and find that Morden’s 1722 map of Suffolk has three mile scales corresponding to 1903 yards, 2025 yards (one minute of Latitude, used as an English Mile on 18C charts) and 2187 yards. ⁴⁾1722 Robert Morden map of Suffolk It is not clear why Morden chose the 1903 and 2187 yard values ⁵⁾these values are measured from a copy so not exact. Morden does not use a mile near either 1760 or 1830 yards so, unless a link can be found to a Suffolk mile of this distance then there appears to be no significance in the distance. Morden used different lengths of miles in other counties. One can find references to Megalithic yards (speculative) and if these existed the radius would be around 4000 of these ⁶⁾ See Megalithic yards . On balance, therefore, the distance does not seem significant and the “Suffolk Mile” dubious.

How practical would it be to arrange the distances to within one per cent? Kirby’s surveying of Suffolk in the early 18C had greater errors than this mainly caused by errors in angles. Whether he was deficient in technique is debatable but he did have the benefit of precision instruments that would not have existed before his time. ⁷⁾John Kirby’s Suffolk introduced by John Blatchly With the circle case, we are only concerned with distance and a one per cent error represents about 36m which could well be achievable over that distance even with the Deben in the way.

Three of the five churches are “All Saints” (an ecclesiastical marketing ploy to increase appeal?) but with mentions of James, Mary and Michael. The alignment of the individual Churches on the east-west axis is only approximate and varies by +/- 10 degrees from this, it has been suggested that there could be a dated solar alignment here, such as a feast day,  but the range of dates would be limited to those near an equinox. So the individual churches are roughly east to west but not in any visibly significant way.

Could there be some astronomical alignment between the sites? If the arrangement is pre-Christian then there would have been more land, obviously low, to seaward. There could have been more trees than now in pre-Christian times and probably fewer than now in medieval times so we can’t be sure how these would affect the line of sight.

Assuming some form of structure similar in height to a church tower then the line of sight between the outside sites and Waldringfield is a reasonable distance to see, visibility over a greater distance, say Brightwell to Ramsholt, could be harder due to intervening terrain. Alignments would probably involve Waldringfield as the central site but others are plausible. We’d expect to have a clear line of sight and find that Brightwell, Martlesham and Sutton have this with a mere 2.5m maximum height difference. Ramsholt to Waldringfield has an 8m rise which could be a problem with trees. Waldringfield to Ramsholt might be easier. Possible alignments include:

• Geographical to some other place, it’s very easy to line up with something somewhere. Nothing obvious.
• Solar sun rise or set is only possible on bearings from 050 to 130 and 230 to 310 which excludes all but Brightwell where Sunset aligns around 5th March & 10th October. If we take alignments from the outer sites through Waldringfield then Sutton gives alignment within two degrees of the Northern Winter Solstice Sunset but that’s not close enough to signify anything. There might be some Saint’s Day alignments. None of the alignments seems to be more than chance.
• For stars, we would need to know the era as these would change over the centuries. However, the only possibility would seem to be observing the rise or set to indicate the date. Rise/set time changes by 4 minutes per day and twilight is variable with conditions. Mist over the river would be an issue. If a stellar observation was a requirement then it would be better to use the nearby sea horizon. Lunar alignments would not have been possible. Unlikely.
• Celtic Solar paths of Solstice lines or similar have been proposed elsewhere, ⁸⁾Graham Robb These might be made to fit with all sorts of things with some imagination and seem unlikely here.

So, there do not seem to be any particular alignments and there would be easier ways of achieving these if required.

Conclusions

• The local Churches are all convenient for access by water if we remove the sea walls.
• All churches could have been built at a higher point nearby.
• The sites are not at the highest points on the circle.
• The circular arrangement agrees to within 1% which could be accounted for by whether the tower or altar was taken for measurement.
• There seem to be no other obvious historical points on the circumference such as Kingston or Sutton Hoo.
• If there is any significance it is likely to be pre-Christian so could be millennia old.
• The angles between the sites don’t seem significant or equal.
• The sites are unevenly distributed around the circumference and paths between churches don’t seem to show a pattern.
• There are no other known arrangements of churches in circles nor megalithic arrangements of this size.
• There are no obvious geographical or solar alignments and, if one wanted to make them, these are not the best sites.
• Star alignments seem most unlikely.
• The circular arrangement intuitively seems too exact to be a coincidence. An analysis of exact locations of Medieval churches in say a thirty-mile radius could be used to test significance. Note that some sites are now beneath the sea and, in any case, present Churches need not correspond to pre-Christian sites.
• BT Labs Radio Tower is an almost exact fit on the circle It was built somewhat later and has religious significance to few.

So, although it seems that we can’t decide conclusively that is not just an interesting coincidence it does rather look like it. It would have been exciting to discover that our village was an important hub for some ancient activity rather than “a small insignificant village” as described in Walter Tye’s book. The investigation was interesting but a further analysis does not seem worthwhile. It has opened up more questions such as why the Churches were not built higher up ⁹⁾Ramsholt Church is said to have been a lookout tower as some point and, if so, why is it not on higher ground as could easily have been done and why did Morden choose those map scales?

With thanks to Professor Mark Bailey and Canon Roy Tricker for their helpful observations. For those who got this far and are still curious notes are available on the Waldringfield History Group website www.waldringfieldia.com ¹⁰⁾http://waldringfieldia.com search for local churches.