Compass Drawn designs

These petal-shaped designs called daisy wheels or hexafoils or hexfoils occur on Roman military tombstones and one appears as the central motif of a Roman mosaic floor excavated in Leicester in 2017 seen lower right in the image.

The later versions, Kemp (2013) believes, are a cipher for the Virgin Mary, representing the six-lobed lilium candidum or Madonna Lily. Hexafoils are more commonly found as medieval ritual protection or apotropaic* marks in English churches. They reflect a traditional belief that the Devil is always around biding his chance to claim your soul. At Belton they may serve to protect the stables' inhabitants, horses, grooms, coachmen & their families against Evil.The continuous lines entrapped malevolent spirits within the pattern. Likely inscribed by six point geometry with sheep shears, blade points set 3 to 4 inches apart. grooms would use such shears were to trim horses' manes & tails. Smaller diameter (25mm) hexafoils seen at Ham House, were likely made by women using sewing shears or scissors (Kemp 2013).

Daisy wheels are truly intercontinental found in France, Belgium and Holland, hence making their way to the United States of America through immigration. Country folk employed these designs up to the 1850's as evidence by this door from Laxfield, Suffolk. The owner describes in the associated video how he and his wife decided to keep this item for continued ritual protection; it had clearly worked!

Matthew Champion offers a detailed talk on the origin of this symbol (Champion 2021).

*apotropaic from Greek apotropaios 'averting evil'