Historic graffiti on Dover Castle, Canterbury Cathedral and Westwood Cross is now appreciated. Are today’s vandals doing us any favours?

When does engraving your name or initials on a building cease to be vandalism and become historically significant?

For example, in one of the car parks at Westwood Cross, a piece of wall from the former hospital that stood on this site can still be seen.

Of mild interest in themselves, but infinitely more fascinating, are some of the engravings chiselled into it. Namely of those who served during the war and who, as they recovered, thought they would leave a lasting memory in the fabric of the place. There are names and dates on them.

Definitely worth checking out next time you park there and head to Primark.

Earlier this year, a Georgian door was also found in Dover Castle, covered in graffiti scratched on by bored English soldiers when England was at war with its French neighbours and threatened by invasion by Napoleon in the latter part of the 18th century.

Today they are fascinating in their own right: being able to trace someone’s footprints from historical moments in time with your finger.

Similarly, at Canterbury Cathedral there are etchings in the stone that are thought to date back to those who were taking part in pilgrimages to see Thomas Becket when he was murdered in the 12th century, dispelling the theory that this type of vandalism is a modern-day phenomenon.

Researchers have also found traces of medieval graffiti in a number of churches in Swale.

But I wonder if there was enough muttering and grumbling at the time about the indelible traces left by these beautiful places?

tears

Can you imagine the fuss if a teenager were to carve his and his lover’s initials into the walls of a cathedral or castle? But in 100 years’ time, we might look back and think about what happened between TJ and KL and wonder if they really existed ‘4 ever’. Future historians might wax lyrical about the young lovers – wondering how they would have survived the pandemic and a time of global uncertainty.

Because there is now a virtually zero tolerance policy regarding such markings on historical sites.

And that is not for nothing.

Recently there have been incidents of people carving their names into the fragile plaster of houses that survived the volcanic eruption in Pompeii, or into the walls of the Colosseum in Rome.

We rightly regard them as acts of gross stupidity and selfishness. But in 1000 years?

It would clearly be completely wrong to condone such actions, but will it always be this way? It is certainly a sign of the times.