The Mystery of the Moving Light: Public Called to Help Solve the 160-Year-Old Labyrinth of St Mary’s Church

Experts are baffled by a Victorian church labyrinth in Hampshire and are asking the public to help explain its meaning. The tiled path lies in the chancel of St Mary’s Church in Itchen Stoke, where it was partially obscured beneath an altar table which has since moved. The Churches Conservation Trust, which looks after the listed building, believes it is the only historic walkable church labyrinth in the country. Churches Conservation Trust Community officer Victoria Green told The Telegraph the design is thought to be based on the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral. It has eleven circuits, around 1,500 glazed tiles, and a single route to the centre measuring about 16ft 6in across. “Visitors use it for prayer or contemplation and children just race or dance around. It’s delightful,” she said, adding that when she walks it she sometimes feels like “being in the Da Vinci Code.”

Since the altar was removed, Green said research has raised more questions than answers. At certain times, sunlight through the high stained-glass windows throws what looks like an arrow across the floor, pointing at the yellow centre. Some have wondered whether the labyrinth also works as a calendar. In trying to answer these questions, the trust now has a “citizen science” section on its website asking visitors to post photos with the hashtag #labyrinthlight, recording what they see at different times of day, starting at sunrise. The church itself dates from 1867, though regular services ended in 1971. Today it attracts pilgrims walking the St James Way, a 66-mile route from Reading Abbey to Southampton. The labyrinth was made by Victorian tile maker Maw and Co and is a copy of the more famous medieval one at Chartres Cathedral, which dates from around 1200 and was laid into stone for medieval pilgrims who couldn’t travel to Jerusalem but wanted to make a pilgrimage nonetheless, with walking as prayer in motion.

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