Tuesday 5 April 2016

A-Z Challenge 2016: D is for Datestone

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com
You may well have seen these in your genealogical quest.  You find an ancestral home (it doesn't have to be a castle; it can be a much more humble dwelling) and, across the lintel of the main door, or across the fireplace, is a carving of a date.  It sometimes includes the initials of the husband and wife who lived there, and it usually shows the date of the completion of the building.

There was one in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights - do you remember?  When Mr Lockwood first comes across the Heights, he sees
a quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door; above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date '1500' and the name 'Hareton Earnshaw' [Chapter 1, Wuthering Heights]
showing that he had come across a datestone.  It was fashionable from the 16th century to put up such a stone, but they are not always reliable as a source, because they may have been re-used in rebuilding or extending.

Datestone 1667


© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

10 comments:

  1. Love this post! The reference to Wuthering Heights and all. I always love looking for the conerstones in old buildings.

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    1. That reference from Wuthering Heights stuck in my mind. I also love these stones.

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  2. one rarely sees that in my land. I love this type of history

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    1. Yes, it brings it all much closer, doesn't it, when you realise that your ancestors looked at that stone as well.

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  3. I'll remember to add a datestone if I ever build another house.

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    1. Good thinking! Generations to come will call you blessed.

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  4. One of the oddest things we found when remodeling were coins. We've wondered if they were being used to record the date of the work. We've also found notes the wood used to build the house, but no cornerstone. Older government buildings, yes. Maybe this was more of a practice in England?

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    1. I think it was pretty English, actually. And it wasn't just cornerstones, it was stones over the threshold, above/below windows - all sorts.

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  5. One of the houses in the village has the date 1687 carved into a window lintel and another has the date written in black bricks across the front of the property - but they didn't work out it out quite right so the last digit is underneath the rest!! 170 9 !!
    Pempi
    A Stormy’s Sidekick
    Special Teaching at Pempi’s Palace

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    1. Makes me think of the visual joke about the sign above the town planning department:
      T O W N P L A N NING

      (oh, the irony)

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