Childrey / Celrea / Chelrey / Chilree

CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Results: 10 records

Click to view images

view of font

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 20 July 1998 by BSI

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

view of font and cover

Image Source: digital photograph taken 21 March 2014 by Basher Eyre [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3999196] [accessed 28 February 2015]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of font

Image Source: [original source unknown/not recorded [probably 19th-century]]

Copyright Instructions: No known copyright restriction – Fair Dealing

view of basin

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 20 July 1998 by BSI

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

cleric - bishop - wearing mitre - with staff - 12

Image Source: detail of a photograph taken 10 April 1990 by Timothy Marlow

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received (letter of 26 October 2013)

view of basin and cover

Image Source: photograph taken 10 April 1990 by Timothy Marlow

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received (letter of 26 October 2013)

view of basin

Image Source: Tyrrell-Green (1928: fig. 100)

Copyright Instructions: PD

view of church exterior - south view - detail

Source caption: "The church has been listed Grade I since 1966 [...] It has a 15th century tower although its origins are some 200 years earlier. There was an even earlier church hereabouts dating to 996 AD which was recorded in the Domesday Book but no trace remains. The nave is Norman but was rebuilt in the mid 15th century around the same time as the tower was built. The transepts were added in ca 1325. The church contains a number of floor- and wall-mounted brasses. There is also an ancient lead font which may date to as early as 1175. It features the embossed figures of twelve bishops dressed in chasubles. The single-handed clock on the tower dates to 1763 and until as recently as 1985 was wound manually every day. Mechanisation has taken over the task. There are memorials within to soldiers who died in the Great War including a brass plaque commemorating the Fallen who were members of the Old Berkshire Hunt. An unusual such memorial is a German-made cross that marked the grave of a British Officer born in Childrey who died in battle in France in 1914 and who was buried by his enemies. Another curiosity is the presence of ‘squints’, openings through the wall of a church in an oblique direction, to enable the worshippers in the transepts or other parts of the church, from which the altar was not visible, to see the elevation of the host. The squint in the north transept is set too high for this to be the case and its true purpose remains unclear."

Scene Description: Source caption: "The church has been listed Grade I since 1966 [...] It has a 15th century tower although its origins are some 200 years earlier. There was an even earlier church hereabouts dating to 996 AD which was recorded in the Domesday Book but no trace remains. The nave is Norman but was rebuilt in the mid 15th century around the same time as the tower was built. The transepts were added in ca 1325. The church contains a number of floor- and wall-mounted brasses. There is also an ancient lead font which may date to as early as 1175. It features the embossed figures of twelve bishops dressed in chasubles. The single-handed clock on the tower dates to 1763 and until as recently as 1985 was wound manually every day. Mechanisation has taken over the task. There are memorials within to soldiers who died in the Great War including a brass plaque commemorating the Fallen who were members of the Old Berkshire Hunt. An unusual such memorial is a German-made cross that marked the grave of a British Officer born in Childrey who died in battle in France in 1914 and who was buried by his enemies. Another curiosity is the presence of ‘squints’, openings through the wall of a church in an oblique direction, to enable the worshippers in the transepts or other parts of the church, from which the altar was not visible, to see the elevation of the host. The squint in the north transept is set too high for this to be the case and its true purpose remains unclear."

Image Source: digital photograph taken 25 August 2011 by Brian Robert Marshall [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2570712] [accessed 28 February 2015]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of church interior - nave - looking east

Image Source: digital photograph taken 25 August 2011 by Brian Robert Marshall [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2570706] [accessed 28 February 2015]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of church interior - nave - looking west

Scene Description: the font at the far [west] end of the nave

Image Source: digital photograph taken 25 August 2011 by Brian Robert Marshall [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2571494] [accessed 28 February 2015]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

INFORMATION

Font ID: 00268CHI

Object Type: Baptismal Font1

Date Visited: 1998-07-20

Font Century and Period/Style: 12th - 13th century, Medieval

Workshop/Group/Artisan: lead font

Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin

Font Location in Church: Inside the church, at the W end of the nave

Church Patron Saint(s): St. Mary the Virgin

Church Address: Church Row, Childrey, Oxfordshire, OX12 9PQ

Site Location: Oxfordshire, South East, England, United Kingdom

Directions to Site: Located about 25 kms SW of Oxford, just E of Wantage on the B4507 (dir. Swindon)

Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Oxford

Historical Region: formerly in Berkshire -- Hundred of Wantage [in Domesday]

Additional Comments: disappeared font? (the one from the Domesday-time church here)

Font Notes: Click to view

There are three entries for Childrey [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SU3687/childrey/] [accessed 28 February 2015], one of which, in the tenancy of Turstin son of Rolf, mentions a church in it. A lead font here is illustrated in Upcott (1818) [with a reference to Lysons]. Listed in Paley (1844) as a "leaden font". In Batty (1848). Noted in Lewis' Dictionary of 1848: "a curious circular font of lead, divided into compartments, in each of which is the figure of an abbot". Noted in Bloxam (1859) and in Cox (1875). In Andre (1882) as late-Norman. Murray (1882) reports a "curious font" in this church. Described in 'Church notes...' (1887) in the context of some "notes [that] were taken between 1835 and 1840": "Font very curious, of lead, cylindrical, embossed with two figures of bishops, with low mitres and crooks in the right hand, the bowl rests upon a stone cylindrical stem, quite plain." Noted in Lethaby (1893). Described in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a lead baptismal font of the 13th century, in the Norman style, "with twelve bishops in relief round the bowl". Bond (1908) counts twelve bishops around the bowl as well. Jenkins (1999) describes them as "apostles dressed as abbots." The Victoria County History (Berkshire, vol. 4, 1912) notes: "The church of Childrey was attached in 1086 to the manor subsequently known as Frethornes [...] The nave is apparently of late 12th-century date, though the south door is the only remaining detail of that period. [...] The font is a plain circular bowl of lead having twelve embossed figures of bishops, each with crozier, book and mitre; it is probably of the 12th century and is unique." On-site notes: small cylindrical lead font with twelve hieratic figures around its sides: they are all wearing chasubles, holding staff in the right arms and, each, holding an object in their left hand; the hats appear to be mitres. The basin is raised on a plain, modern, cylindrical concrete base. The modern base is cast concrete.

Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Timothy Marlow for his photograph of this font

COORDINATES

UTM: 30U 605169 5716268

Latitude & Longitude (Decimal): 51.587641, -1.481919

Latitude & Longitude (DMS): 51° 35′ 15.51″ N, 1° 28′ 54.91″ W

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: metal, lead

Number of Pieces: one

Font Shape: cylindrical, mounted

Basin Interior Shape: round

Basin Exterior Shape: round

Drainage System: centre hole in basin & base

Rim Thickness: 1-2 cm

Diameter (inside rim): 52-53 cm

Diameter (includes rim): 55.5 - 56.5 cm

Basin Depth: 30 cm

Basin Total Height: 32 cm

Notes on Measurements: BSI on-site

LID INFORMATION

Date: modern

Material: wood, oak?

Apparatus: no

Notes: octagonal and flat; massive metal handle; modern

REFERENCES

"Church notes, chiefly in Berks, Wilts, and Oxford, with a few in Somerset and Gloucestershire", 44, Archaeological Journal, 1887, pp. 43-50; 185-193; 291-303; 397-402; p. 186
Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.
André, J. Lewis, "Leaden Fonts in Sussex", 32, Surrey Archaeological Collections, relating to the history and antiquities of the county, 1882
Batty, Robert Eaton, Some particulars connected with the history of baptismal fonts: being a paper read at the quarterly general meeting of the Architectural and Archaeological Society for the County of Buckingham, London: F. & J. Rivington, 1848, p. 20
Bloxam, Matthew Holbeche, The Principles of Gothic ecclesiastical architecture, with an explanation of technical terms […], London: W. Kent, 1859, p. 366
Bond, Francis, Fonts and Font Covers, London: Waterstone, 1985 c1908, p. 79, 87 and ill on p. 86
Clayton, Brian C., "English Church Fonts of Ornamental Lead Work", X, no. 57, Apollo: a Journal of the Arts, 1929, pp. 133-138; p. 133-138
Cox, John Charles, 1875-1877
Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907, p. 164, 186
Ditchfield, Peter Hampson, English villages, London: Methuen & Co., 1901, [chapter XIV]
Jenkins, Simon, England's Thousand Best Churches, London and New York: Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 1999 [2000 rev. printing], p. 538
Lethaby, William Richard, Leadwork, old and ornamental, and for the most part English [...] with illustrations, London; New York: Macmillan & co., 1893, p. 59
Lewis, Samuel, A Topographical Dictionary of England, Comprising the Several Counties, Cities, Boroughs, Corporate and Market Towns, Parishes, Chapelries, and Townships, and the Islands of Guernsy, Jersey, and Man, with Historical and Statistical Descriptions [...], London: S. Lewis, 1831, [www.british-history.ec.uk/report.asp?compid=50873] [accessed 24 January 2007]
Murray, John [the firm], Handbook for travellers in Berks. Bucks and Oxfordshire, including a [...], London: John Murray, 1882, p. 52
Paley, Frederick Apthorp, Illustrations of Baptismal Fonts, London, UK: John van Voorst, 1844, p. 24
Tyrrell-Green, E., Baptismal Fonts Classified and Illustrated, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge: The Macmillan Co., 1928, 144, 145 and fig. 100 on p. 155
Upcott, William, A bibliographical account of the principal works relating to English topography, London: Printed by Richard and Arthur Taylor, 1818, p. 12 and pl. 7 / [http://books.google.com/books?id=gLwuAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA228&lpg=PA228&dq=upcott+1818&source=web&ots=lJwT-K00zU&sig=oVT6Kc6G03vqjYf4Synuk_Aek9w#PPP15,M1] [accessed 23 September 2007]