I can't help you with the above but I have a cottage dated roughly 1680.
We had to redo a floor and found a coin (George II ha'penny I think) in each corner (obviously planted there for luck) other finds were clealy lost, silk bobbins, a thimble but the fireplace beam has a symbol scratched into it that we subsequently found in a book as a superstition mark.
It's a circle containing 3 overlaid figures of 8 kind of looks like a daisy.
Seems to have been to stop the devil coming down the chimney or something. (I wonderred why Santa always missed us)