There is an old tale in Mayfield, Sussex, about the building of the church there in the time of St Dunstan (not then canonised, of course). It happened that Old Nick had it in for Dunstan in particular, and the conversion of Sussex in general, and so, every night, he mipped out and shifted the church a bit off line, so the builders had to take it down and start again. When the Archbishop turned up and inquired why the church was not there, the builders explained that every morning, when they checked the alignment, it was wrong, because af the activities of Old Nick. At this, Dunstan applied his shoulder to the building, heaved it into line, and told the builders not to move it again. And it remained where it was.

Now I can think of other reasons for the events of this story, and one detail in particular is that churches were aligned to sunrise on the day of the the saint to which they were dedicated, or some other feast. Naturally, this would not be the same as other days during the building process. Parish church alignments vary. Alignments of different parts of cathedrals vary.

I went to Rome this year, and found church alignments so varied that the Earth must have been in uncontrolled tumbling at the time. Unless they were aligned on preceding temples.

Penny