Code king cracks monumental mystery

A secret inscription said to lead to the Holy Grail has been unravelled, reports Nick Fielding

Now, at last, the mystery of inscriptions carved on the Shepherds’ Monument at Shugborough Hall, ancestral home of the earls of Lichfield, has been solved — well, possibly.

Following a competition launched earlier this summer, some of the most convincing explanations for the inscribed picture in reverse and a seemingly random series of letters will be presented this week by Bletchley Park, the centre that made its name cracking Hitler's Enigma code.

Bletchley itself is cautiously supporting a theory from a professional codebreaker whose job does not permit him to disclose his identity. He argues that the inscription points to the hiding place of a stone tablet handed down from the Old Testament prophet Jacob, which was a talisman for a secret society known as the Priory of Sion.