Pencil drawing of a compass rose tattoo design with N, E, S and W points and a shaded rose at the centre, in a black and grey gothic style.

Compass rose design with central rose

Geometric · Black and grey · Flash

A pencil sketch of a compass rose design, with arrow-shaped points marking north, south, east and west and the letters N, W and E rendered in ornate blackletter-style lettering. A shaded rose sits at the centre, with leaf-like shapes radiating outwards between the points. The drawing uses pencil shading and hatching in greys on a plain white background, with the composition set as a symmetrical cross.

Geometric Compass Rose Arrow Letter Cross

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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

The sea had eaten Tollesby church down to its last three pews by the spring I turned fourteen, so Mr Ashdown sent me up the cliff path with a brass compass, a tin of ink and orders to fix true north before the headland went too. I was certain I knew better than the old charts. He let me believe it for a week, then handed me a pencil and told me to draw the winds.

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We began on the one flat stone left in the nave. Ashdown's rule was that every chart starts with four arrows and a rose at the heart, because a rose is what you press between pages when you mean to keep something. He had me set the N at the tower, the E and W in the old blackletter his father used on the harbour plans, and the S with its long tail running down toward the water, where the stone was already gone. Every time the wind backed round to the south, that tail seemed to lift off the paper as if it wanted to be somewhere else.

I wanted the rose done in shadow, and he let me. I hatched it grey, petal over petal, while the tide crept in under the lych gate. By the time I had finished the leaves fanning out between the points, the water had reached the font. Ashdown folded the drawing into his coat without looking at it and said a chart only has to be right for as long as someone is standing on it. We walked back along the ridge in silence, and I still have the pencil. The rose is the only part of the church anyone can find now.