Tuesday 28th January 2025:
The Chilmington Archaeology & History Research Group (CAHRG) has got off to a roaring start in its quest to uncover more about Chilmington in wartime. Late last year, while visiting the historic church of St Mary’s Great Chart, AOC Archaeologist Becky Haslam spotted a very small line-drawn depiction or ‘graffito’ of what may be a Second World War era tank, as well as some enigmatic lines that (perhaps) represent tank tracks, high on the wall of the entrance to St Mary’s.
These were drawn in graphite on unstable stone and are relatively open to the elements, so the decision to ‘preserve via record’ was taken to retain photographic evidence of Becky’s discovery.
A volunteer team of Sarah, Hilary, and Ian met on the 28th of January before the Group’s monthly meeting to take a series of photographs of this tiny graffito, which is under 4cm across. They used a range of lighting conditions and camera settings to capture as much image data as possible, along with the wider context of the tank in relation to the church wall. The raw image data can now be more deeply analysed and processed by our graphics team to better understand (or, in this case, see) the drawing.
A huge thank you to Rev Cathie Aldis-Saunders for allowing us to access the graffito, and for taking the time to show us around the church.
