Graffiti to ward off evil found at Kibworth Harcourt mill

Archaeologist James Wright inspecting some of the oldest carvings in the windmill

Centuries-old graffiti - including ancient carvings designed to ward off witches and demons - has been revealed at a listed mill.

The marks were found at Kibworth Harcourt mill, in Leicestershire, parts of which date from at least 1711.

The carvings, made by millers and others, were intended to ward off evil.

Archaeologist James Wright said: "These marks are significant as they show real belief in Satan and demons lasted much later than is sometimes thought."

The mill is of an early design, more common in the late middle ages

Grade II* listed Kibworth is the only surviving example of a post mill - an earlier design than the more familiar brick tower mill - in the East Midlands.

For years owned by Merton College, Oxford, it was passed to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) in 1936.

Ahead of renewed conservation work, SPAB commissioned a new study of the structure's 264 examples of graffiti.

Mr Wright said: "That's a lot of marks in a space about the size of a suburban kitchen.

"And almost 18% of them are Apotropaic, which means designed to ward off, rather than names or dates."

Most of the protective markings are either a rosette design or burns

The symbols are either rosettes or teardrop-shaped burn marks.

The main body of the mill dates from around 1773 which, Mr Wright says, makes the marks more important.

"This is the age of the Enlightenment, where science and reason were on the march," he said.

"But this is an insight into people's thinking where, here, out in the country these fears and beliefs were still real".

A miller's son left three pieces of graffiti including one with a picture of the mill itself

Other pieces of graffiti include three from 1870, 1876 and 1880 by miller's son William Ward Smith when he was 8, 15 and 19.

One of these even features a sketch of the mill itself.

Mr Wright said: "Here we have someone growing up in the mill, becoming an adult and leaving their marks.

"It brings you closer to the lives of the people who were once here."

SPAB says it is working towards making the mill operational again for the first time since the 1930s and hopes to have the project completed by December.