In 1561, the police caught Hew Draper for his “heinous crime” — practising sorcery. In jail, the Briston innkeeper could not contain his zest for his art. He engraved on the prison wall an astrological sphere with all the zodiac signs. 

Draper’s work, etched in stone, was comprehensible enough. But the jail has held hundreds of prisoners, many of whom have similarly recorded their thoughts and feelings on the cold walls. 

What did they want to convey? 

Raising the intrigue is the fact that the jail is part of the iconic Tower of London, an awe-inspiring superstructure that was built in 1066 by William the Conqueror. 

The scribblings on the wall have always been a mystery. Most of them were declared illegible. But researchers are carrying on regardless, using modern techniques. By using raking light (light shone at an angle), laser scanning and X-ray, researcher Jamie Ingram was able to pick up words here and there. 

When Ingram started off, he was told there would be 79 graffities; he found 354. 

The researchers are piecing together information to try and make sense of them. Some of the scribblings are religious, at least one refers to a ‘husband’. 

It would be interesting to find out if Lady Jane Grey had anything to say. Grey was Queen of England before she was executed at the age of 16, in 1554. Her rule lasted all of nine days, earning her the epithet ‘the nine-day queen’.

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Published on December 15, 2024