Potter Heigham / Higham Potter / Higham-Potter
Image copyright © John Salmon, 2007
CC-BY-SA-3.0
Results: 14 records
view of font and cover - south side
Scene Description: [orientation is approximate]
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Salmon, 2007
Image Source: digital photograph taken 14 April 2007 by John Salmon [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/478545] [accessed 14 January 2014]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
view of font and cover - east side
![[orientation is approximate]](/static-50478a99ec6f36a15d6234548c59f63da52304e5/compressed/1140119006_compressed.png)
Scene Description: [orientation is approximate]
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Salmon, 2007
Image Source: igital photograph taken 14 April 2007 by John Salmon [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/478541] [accessed 14 January 2014]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
view of font
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © [in the public domain]
Image Source: B&W photograph in Bond (1908: 74)
Copyright Instructions: PD
view of font
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Cautley, 1949
Image Source: B&W photograph in Cautley (1949: 127)
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission received from the publisher
design element - architectural - arch or window - trefoiled
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Salmon, 2007
Image Source: digital photograph taken 14 April 2007 by John Salmon [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/478545] [accessed 14 January 2014]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
view of church exterior - southeast view
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Robert Wilkes, 2014
Image Source: drawing done in 2014 by Robert Wilkes
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of church exterior - southwest view
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Salmon, 2007
Image Source: digital photograph taken 14 April 2007 by John Salmon [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/478534] [accessed 14 January 2014]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
view of church exterior - southwest end
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © George Plunkett, 2014
Image Source: SW B&W photograph taken 14 June 1989 by George Plunkett [www.georgeplunkett.co.uk/Norfolk/P/Potter Heigham St Nicholas' church tower [6549] 1989-06-14.jpg] [accessed 14 Janaury 2014]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission by Jonathan Plunkett
view of church exterior - southeast view
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © George Plunkett, 2014
Image Source: B&W photograph taken 14 June 1989 by George Plunkett [www.georgeplunkett.co.uk/Norfolk/P/Potter Heigham St Nicholas' church from SE [6550] 1989-06-14.jpg] [accessed 14 Janaury 2014]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission by Jonathan Plunkett
view of church interior - nave - looking west
Scene Description: the font and cover are visible at the west end of the centre aisle
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Evelyn Simak, 2007
Image Source: digital photograph taken 18 April 2007 by Evelyn Simak [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/452745] [accessed 14 January 2014]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
view of church interior - nave - looking east
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Salmon, 2007
Image Source: digital photograph taken 14 April 2007 by John Salmon [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/478538] [accessed 14 January 2014]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
design element - architectural - buttress - 8
Scene Description: all plain, at the angles of the stem of the base
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Salmon, 2007
Image Source: digital photograph taken 14 April 2007 by John Salmon [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/478545] [accessed 14 January 2014]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
symbol - shield
Scene Description: several, blank [now], on the upper step of the plinth
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Salmon, 2007
Image Source: igital photograph taken 14 April 2007 by John Salmon [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/478541] [accessed 14 January 2014]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
view of font cover - crane
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © [in the public domain]
Image Source: B&W photograph in Bond (1908: 299)
Copyright Instructions: PD
INFORMATION
Font ID: 00258POT
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Century and Period/Style: 15th century, Perpendicular
Cognate Fonts: Another brick font at Polstead, Suffolk, and one at Chignal Smealy, Essex
Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. Nicholas
Font Location in Church: Inside the church, at the W end of the nave, opposite the S entrance
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Nicholas of Myra
Church Notes: round-tower church
Church Address: Church Lane, Potter Heigham, Norfolk NR29 5LH
Site Location: Norfolk, East Anglia, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located about 24 km ENE of Norwich, at the crossroads of the A1062 and the A149
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Norwich
Historical Region: Hundred of Happing
Additional Comments: disappeared font? (the one from the ca.1200 church here)
Font Notes:
Click to view
There is an entry in the Domesday survey for Potters Heighm [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/TG4119/potter-heigham/] [accessed 14 January 2014], but it mentions neither church nor cleric in it. Blomefield (1805-1810) writes: "This village is not mentioned in the book of Domesday being included and accounted for under the abbot of Holm's lordship of Waxham, or Ludham [...] The Church is dedicated to St. Nicholas, and was a rectory. In the reign of King John [1199-1216] the abbot presented Peter Bardolf to be vicar [...] In the reign of Edward I [1272-1307] it was a rectory, and the rector had a manse with the vicarage, valued at 30 marks; and the vicar had then all the land belonging to the church." Andre (1889) writes: "At Potter Heigham is a remarkable font which, with the high steps forming the base, is entirely composed of terra cotta, or moulded brickwork, the joints of which being wide and the edges of the various pieces very ragged, would seem to show that it was originally covered with an extremely thin coating of plaster, such as was used in former times, but never seen now." The present font is listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a pre-Reformation baptismal font made of bricks of local clay. Described and illustrated in Bond (1908) as a fine example of a brick font, although it seems to have been covered with concrete; the font is roughly octagonal, both the basin and the pedestal base, the latter with some sort of ornamentation not discernible in the source. The plinth has three steps and has shields on some of the sides. The underbowl has a graded chamfer and the stem of the base, also octagonal, has plain buttresses at the angles; the sides of the stem are plain as well. Bond (ibid.) points out the pulley near the apex of the roof; it must have served to raise the font cover in the past (the cover illustrated in Cautley is a modern flat one). There is another reference to a font at "Heigham, Norfolk" in Bond (ibid.) as having the famous Greek palindrome NIFON ANOM HMAT... on it, but Bond lists them separately in his Index locorum and we have not able to locate corroboration of the inscription. Bond (ibid.) records the mechanism of the font cover: "At Potter Heigham [...][ there may be seen a pulley near the apex of the roof, like long rollers, which have been used for the ropes or chain to raise and lower the font cover." The font is described and illustrated in Cautley (1949) who remarks on its being of brick and adds "the only other example I know of being at Chignal Smealy (Essex)". In Pevsner & Wilson (1997). Described and illustrated in Knott (2008): "Norfolk's only brick font (Suffolk has another at Polstead). It appears to be 15th century; there are banded details which have eroded, but may have been trefoils."
Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Ihor Prociuk for drawing our attention to Lloyd's (1925) reference to this font; we are also grateful to Jonathan Plunkett for the photographs of this church, taken by his father, George Plunkett, in 1989, and to Robert Wilkes for his drawing of the church.
COORDINATES
UTM: 31U 403701 5841789
Latitude & Longitude (Decimal): 52.722954, 1.581443
Latitude & Longitude (DMS): 52° 43′ 22.63″ N, 1° 34′ 53.2″ E
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material: brick, (once covered with concrete)
Font Shape: octagonal, mounted
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: octagonal
INSCRIPTION
Inscription Notes: [cf. FontNotes about a possible inscription on this font]
LID INFORMATION
Date: modern
Material: wood
Apparatus: Yes [but not for the present cover][
Notes: The cover shown in Cautley, ca. 1949, is a flat wooden one, modern. As described in Bond (1908), only the pulley of the old cover remains
REFERENCES
- André, J. Lewis, "Notes on Ritualistic Ecclesiology in North-East Norfolk", XLVI, Archaeological Journal, 1889, pp. 136-155; p. 144-145
- Blomefield, Francis, An essay towards a topographical history of Norfolk, 1805-1810, vol. 9: 312-314 / [www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=78551] [accessed 14 January 2014]
- Bond, Francis, Fonts and Font Covers, London: Waterstone, 1985 c1908, p. 76, [113?], 299 and ills. on p. 74, 299
- Cautley, Henry Munro, Norfolk Churches, Ipswich: Norman Adlard & Co., 1949, p. 22 and ill. on p. 127
- Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907, p. 164
- Knott, Simon, The Norfolk Churches Site, Simon Knott, 2004. [standing permission to reproduce images received from Simon (February 2005]. URL: www.norfolkchurches.co.uk.
- Lloyd, Nathaniel, History of English brickwork with examples and notes of the architectural use and manipulation of brick from mediaeval times to the end of the Georgian period, London: H.G. Montgomery, 1925, p. 382 (ill. and caption)
- Pevsner, Nikolaus, Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East [2nd ed.], Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1997, p. 641