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.
Read more about this topic: Shugborough Hall
Famous quotes containing the words shepherd and/or monument:
“The shepherd is the brain behind the dog’s brain,
But his control of dog, like dog’s of sheep
Is never absolute—that’s the beauty of it.”
—Cecil Day Lewis (1904–1972)
“I hope there will be no effort to put up a shaft or any monument of that sort in memory of me or of the other women who have given themselves to our work. The best kind of a memorial would be a school where girls could be taught everything useful that would help them to earn an honorable livelihood; where they could learn to do anything they were capable of, just as boys can. I would like to have lived to see such a school as that in every great city of the United States.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)