Brown line drawing of a compass rose with N, E, S and W letters and a fleur-de-lis at the north point, on a textured paper background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Compass rose design

Black and grey · Flash

A detailed compass rose drawn in brown ink, with a central star of eight points and a fleur-de-lis at the top, enclosed in a double circular ring. Fine hatching and cross-lines shade the points, and the cardinal letters N, E, S and W sit at the four ends. The design is centred on a plain, textured cream background.

Compass Compass rose Fleur-de-lis Star Nautical

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ada,

Keep reading

The clock over platform two stopped again on Tuesday, so I have taken to reckoning the hours by the milk train, which has never once been late in the twelve years I have worked this line. Mr Pryce says the brass compass in the booking office has hung there since the old company, nailed to the wall above the ticket rack, and that it points true north only when the stove is out. I laughed at him. Then I came in on Wednesday and found it had swung round to face the waiting room, the needle trembling as if it had something to say.

Last night a woman came off the late train with one case and a folded map of the coast. She asked me which way was the sea. I told her the sea lay south and she should walk down past the goods yard, but she shook her head and tapped the map where someone had drawn a rose in brown ink, eight points spiking out from the middle with a little fleur-de-lis at the top. She said her father had drawn it for her on the back of a ration card, and that the north point was the only one that mattered, because it was the way home. I told her north was over the bridge, behind the signal box. She thanked me and set off the wrong way, I think on purpose, to see whether I would stop her.

I did not stop her. I stood on the platform until the lamps went out, thinking about the compass on the wall, and how a thing can be fixed to one place and still keep pointing somewhere else.

This morning I went to the booking office early and the needle had settled back on north, true as anything. I have left the case she forgot on the bench under the clock. Come up at Easter if the trains are running, and bring the map if you have one. We will see which way it points.

Love, Tom