Note gratefully received from Jane Lawson of Woolwich, London, 5 January 2023:

‘I expect you are familiar with the practice of chalking on the door on [5 January] the eve of Epiphany. Christus Mansionem Benedicat.  Christ Bless this House, and also the initials of the magi – Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar.  Found all over Europe and in many Catholic and Anglican houses and churches here.  My  [Catholic] French mother used to put rosemary [Salvia rosmarinus, Rosmarinus officinalis] and rue [Ruta graveolens] on the door, but I’m laid low with a virus, so can’t gather any.’

At entrance to St Mary’s (Anglican) church, Balham High Road, London Borough of Wandsworth, 16 February 2023:

At exit to Wakefield Cathedral, West Yorkshire, 18 February 2023:

Instruction sheet, St Edmund and St Mary’s Church, Ingatestone, Essex, 6 February 2024.

A note by Jacqueline Simpson, in FLS News 79:3 (2016), records that on the Feast of Epiphany 2016, the vicar of St Symphorian’s, Anglo-Catholic Church, Worthing, West Sussex, used ”’blessed chalk” to write a protective inscription over the church door, and distributed pieces of chalk to parishioners to use in this way at home’.  Simpson had not come across this custom before, but she gathered ‘from various websites that it is common in Central Europe, reached Britain a few years ago, and is increasingly popular here among Roman Catholics and Catholic-minded Anglicans’.

Updated 24 February 2026.