7th July 2013, 04:47 PM
they were hardly consistent with church orientations - the intent may have been there but in reality somewhere between north-east and south-east seem to have been fine for the altar end. Some churches can't even manage a common alignment between the nave and chancel. And in towns they often threw the whole thing out and just fitted them to the street plan, so altar at east end can't have been that important, merely an aspiration for when it was convenient. Modern churches seem to have given up entirely depsite the advent of the compass...