Eye of God...

[Maiden Stone]

Returning to the original question about the "Eye of God" in the church, K Garrard's replies #2 & #3 seem  logical and practical.

[Maiden Stone]

As in the Salem witch trials, chief prosecution witness against the Pendle witches was a young person, a 9 year-old girl, Jennet Device/Davis, youngest member of one of the families on trial. Whether her evidence was credible is a matter of opinion. Whether she understood what she was saying, whether she was coached or was trying to please Roger Nowell are all debateable.
Jennet, as an adult, suffered the same fate as the rest of her family.

[KGarrad]

According to folklore rowan deters witches. It was customary to plant one near a house to keep witches away.

Hmmm? Interesting!

The Rowan tree (Sorbus aucuparia) is one of the sacred trees of Wicca/Witchcraft and of old was a favoured tree of the ancient Druids.

The Rowan tree is a very dense tree and has been use for many years to make walking sticks and magician's staves, as well as Druid staffs and wands.  Even today is is still one of the most sought after woods for wands and amulets. It is believed to help psychic abilities and connections.  If you look at the berries when you remove them from the stick you will notice the pentacle symbol where they were attached. They are used in many Wiccan rituals and traditions today.

And, just in passing, you're spelling my name incorrectly!

[Maggie.]

From our house I can see the Church of St Mary at Newchurch in Pendle - it is my parish church, my husband is church surveyor and some discoveries have come about during recent extensive restoration work on the tower.

The Eye of God feature predates the position of the 1653 date stone. Externally if consists of 2 individual curved stone pieces coming together to form a lozenge shape and the ‘eye’ is a piece of blue slate surrounded by a sand and cement infill. ie. it’s not lime mortar.  This puts the infill sometime later than 1850.  It is topped with a rectangular drip stone.  Internally (and I’ve been up the tower to have a look) the now infilled opening is roughly rectangular shaped and the shape is consistent with it having once been a window.

Therefore I think the bit that KGarrad quotes from http://www.martintop.org.uk/blog/eye-god-newchurch-pendle makes sense:-

More likely, it was carved so bell-ringers or their assistants could see approaching wedding and funeral parties, and wasn’t originally filled in. This is, after all, one of the few churches in the country that affords no views whatever of the road that approaches it.

However

"If carvings could really keep witches away, every church in the country would have had one.

I recently attended a day course of medieval graffiti on stone and wood and it was fascinating.  In more superstitious times stone and woodwork would be marked in a variety of ways in the belief that such marks would ward off evil spirits.  Doorways, window frames, gate posts etc would be marked in a huge variety of ways and most are easily missed unless you are aware what you are looking for and churches provide a rich source.  That is not to say that this explains the Eye of God at St Mary's though.

http://www.medieval-graffiti.co.uk/page7.html
http://www.medieval-graffiti.co.uk/page5.html

[Maggie.]

St Mary's church was at the centre of where the witches reportedly lived and also has a 'witches grave' (as incidentally does Woodplumpton Church). One of the witches, Chattox, is said to have desecrated graves ther

True they did live around here and bones were indeed dug up in the graveyard but the so called witches grave is in fact an ancient family grave containing various members of the Nutter family and does not contain the remains of a witch.  A convicted witch would not have been buried in consecrated ground, in fact the unfortunate Alice Nutter would have been slung into a pit after her hanging at Lancaster in 1612, poor lady.  Incidentally Alice married into the Nutter family and it's not known what her maiden name was.

Maggie

[KGarrad]

Thanks for that info, Maggie.
Nice to hear it from someone with intimate knowledge

[Maggie.]

Another theory to add to the mix is that Alice Nutter, the only one of the Pendle Witches who wasn't a peasant was a Catholic and was on her way to a secret Mass when she went to/by Malkin Tower. When she was arrested and interrogated she didn't want to betray any Catholic associates. 1612 was only a few years after Robert Catesby's plot to blow up Houses of Parliament and stage a Catholic-led coup'd'etat. Lancashire was a Catholic heartland.

I tend to agree with this view MS.  Here in these parts we have a soft spot for Alice Nutter who lived in Roughlee.  Little is known about her other than she was married to a yeoman farmer and therefore rather better placed that the rest of the so called witches.  A few years ago a bronze statue depicting how Alice may have looked was erected in Roughlee.  It has rapidly become a tourist attraction.

Maggie

[Maggie.]

Thanks for that info, Maggie.
Nice to hear it from someone with intimate knowledge

You are very welcome KG.  I could twitter on about the Pendle Witches ad nauseam, also other less satanic aspects of the area, like George Fox and his vision whilst climbing Pendle Hill, or the dastardly and drunken deeds of various past incumbents of St Mary's, but perhaps for now it's time put my broomstick away and put the cauldron on the fire.   

Maggie

[Lydart]

"You are right, there's no credible historical evidences of such character as Jesus Christ"

Umm, I totally disagree ..... have you never read or even heard of Josephus ?    He wrote quite a lot about Christ, Pilate, Herod and so on ..........