Shugborough Hall - The Shepherd's Monument

The Shepherd's Monument

The Shepherd's Monument has been internationally well-known since 1982, when the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail drew attention to the mysterious Shugborough inscription. Carved by an unknown 18th-century craftsman, this has been called one of the world's top uncracked ciphertexts. Theories have abounded, including some which suggest it may indicate the whereabouts of the Holy Grail, an idea fuelled by the Anson family's ancestral ties to the Knights Templar.

In January 2011 the British press revealed that A. J. Morton had solved the code. The letters O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V. & D.M., the Times explained, were probably created for, by, or in memorial of, Viscount Anson and his wife Mary Vernon-Venables.

In recent years, codebreakers from the National Codes Center at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire have tried unsuccessfully to decipher it. Before them, it is said that Charles Darwin and Charles Dickens also tried, and similarly failed.

Numerous explanations have been put forward, linking the code to the Priory of Sion, the Holy Grail and UFO's.

One more modest and romantic theory is that the inscription is a secret message between two lovers.