Design
Usually carved into stone or sometimes wood, they can be very detailed, with usually only the initials of the married couple, the date of the marriage and sometimes the Coat of arms of the two families, just those of the husband and very rarely the combined coats of arms of both families. In some cases the adornment was religious in nature, such as at 'The Hill' farm mansion house (see photograph) or an artistic design simply placed there as an ornamentation. The designs are found cut into the stone or standing proud of the rock face. Originally some of these stones would have been brightly painted and adorned with gilt.
Marriage Stones
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A Marriage stone above the door to the Formal Gardens at Robertland House, East Ayrshire. Circa 1930.
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The 'Marriage Stone' lintel at 'The Hill' farm, Dunlop, East Ayrshire.
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A view of the 'Marriage stone' lintel positioned over the entrance to 'The Hill' farm mansion house together with the motto "Delights and Adorns" and a Bible held in a hand dexter held upright, suggesting both northern Ireland and Protestantism.
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A Marriage stone set into the old Sawmill near Aiket Castle. The faded markings have been enhanced.
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1811 Marriage stone from the old Nettlehirst Mains Farm near Barrmill, North Ayrshire.
Read more about this topic: Marriage Stone
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“Humility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“You can make as good a design out of an American turkey as a Japanese out of his native stork.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)