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Edgar 2016 provides a detailed description of the Stables' fabric and their architectural history. Re-roofing in the 1960s may have erased attic graffiti. The £3 million Stables renovation has allowed survey for internal graffiti.
We counted 562 individual items of external graffiti. Most graffiti appeared on the dressed ashlar and quoin stones rather than on the squared limestone rubble. Consequently the vast majority is on the east elevation. This may relate to the ease of inscribing on ashlar and that the east side was the main outside working area of the Stables' staff.
Figure 1 Numbers of graffiti according to classification
Classification
Classification
The commonest inscriptions are described and discussed on their own linked pages according to the classification below.
Masons' Marks
Alexander 2008 divides these into quarry, assembly & banker marks. The majority of the complex marks she describes on Elizabethan Kirkby Hall, Northamptonshire bear no resemblance to the Stables' inscriptions. We believe that few if any of the marks on the dressed ashlar are masons' marks. The Mansion itself has three probable historic graffiti carved into it; two sets of initials and a number. Stanton's team did not leave visible masons' marks.
Figure 1 BSE1.4.2 40 & vertical line
Numbers
Some graffiti have no discernible meaning such as the number 40 in figure 1.
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