Hidden Patterns in the Dorset Landscape - Jonathan Harwood - DEMG

 The positions of churches in the South Dorset landscape, when connected together by drawn lines (church symbol to church symbol on the 1:25,000 scale map of South Dorset) reveal deliberate meaningful patterns. Jonathon will be describing and analysing these patterns. The hypothesis is explored that these patterns were created in the late Roman period and that, where parish churches now stand, there were once early Christian sacred sites. These probably functioned rather like Pagan temples, in which the rites and mysteries of the birth, 'sacred marriage', death and resurrection of the fertility gods were performed. These rites may have 'activated' the lines of the geometry, thus 'conducting' the ensuing fertility to the land, its people and their livestock. That is one possibility. It is also possible that these patterns were created in order to preserve secrets that might otherwise have been lost.