Historic Graffiti on the Tower of St Oswald’s Church, Filey, North Yorkshire: Recording and Interpretation
Author(s): John Buglass
The Grade 1 St Oswald’s Church lies to the north of Church Ravine in Filey and the extensive collection of well-preserved graffiti was found to cover the roof of the tower. Following the discovery of the graffiti Historic England funded a project to use the collection to develop a potential methodology for the recording of historic graffiti and as part of the project a detailed study was undertaken on the graffiti. In order to produce a permanent record of the graffiti the roof was systematically recorded using multiple, overlapping, 24megapixels resolution images. The resulting images were processed by Historic England using Structure from Motion (SfM) software in order to produce a high resolution three-dimensional photomosaic of the roof surface. The photomosaic was then used for the detailed study of the graffiti. The study recorded 1,482 legible graffiti which ranged from sets of initials through to complex images of fully rigged sailing vessels. This report presents the details of this range of information including identifying particular people and their occupations, changes in literacy, the rise in tourism in Filey, developments in coastal shipping and a possible record of 17th century plague.
- Report Number:
- 62/2016
- Series:
- Other
- Pages:
- 77
- Keywords:
- Graffiti Place of Worship
