Ilam

Results: 19 records

Click to view images and/or subjects

Christ - Agnus Dei - with cross and banner - holy dove

Scene Description: the avian figure looking more like a vulture perched on the cross; the lamb itself requiring much imagination to identify as such

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 17 July 1998 by BSI

animal - mammal - lion - passant-regardant - with prey - human?

Scene Description: the animal, passant to the right, swings its head back, with a human head in its jaws; the font claws hold another human head -- Sharp (2000) suggests these animals may be the wolves that devoured St. Bertram's Irish wife

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 17 July 1998 by BSI

animal - mammal - lion - passant-regardant - with prey - human? - detail

Scene Description: the human head in the beast's font claws

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 17 July 1998 by BSI

animal - mammal - lion - passant-regardant - with prey - human? - detail

Scene Description: the human head in the beast's mouth

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 17 July 1998 by BSI

design element - architectural - arcade - round arches - columns with capitals and bases

Scene Description: all around -- the coluimns vary in size, pattern, etc.

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 17 July 1998 by BSI

human figure - male - sad countenance

Scene Description: Sharp (2000) suggests this may be St. Bertram after the death of his wife devoured by wolves [cf. FontNotes]

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 17 July 1998 by BSI

human figure - male - standing

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 17 July 1998 by BSI

sacrament - marriage

Scene Description: Sharp suggests these two figures could be St. Bertram and his Irish wife; she may be the human devoured by the beasts on the other sides of the font [cf. FontNotes]

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 17 July 1998 by BSI

view of base

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 17 July 1998 by BSI

view of basin

Image Source: digital photograph taken by Craig Thornber [www.thornber.net]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of church exterior - churchyard, cemetery

Scene Description: view from the churchyard

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 17 July 1998 by BSI

view of church exterior - southwest end

Scene Description: western tower and south porch

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 17 July 1998 by BSI

view of font

Image Source: digital image of a drawing [1826] by John Chesshall Buckler, in the William Salt Library, Stafford -- Image copyright © William Salt Library Photograph [ca. 1950-1955] -- courtesy of the Staffordshire Past Track, Staffordshire Arts and Museum Service [for copyright details and conditions of use refer to www.search.staffspasttrack.org.uk/copyright.asp]

Copyright Instructions: Permission received from the Library (e-mail of 6 January 2005)

view of font

Scene Description: notice the original base replaced by a new one

Image Source: William Salt Library, Stafford [www.staffordshire.gov.uk/live/pdf/archives/fis-lei.pdf]

Copyright Instructions: Permission received from the Library (e-mail of 6 January 2005)

view of font

Image Source: digital image of a B&W photograph in Bond (1908)

Copyright Instructions: PD

view of font

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 17 July 1998 by BSI

view of font

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 17 July 1998 by BSI

view of font and cover

Image Source: William Salt Library, Stafford [www.staffordshire.gov.uk/live/pdf/archives/fis-lei.pdf]

Copyright Instructions: Permission received from the Library (e-mail of 6 January 2005)

INFORMATION

FontID: 00279ILA

Church/Chapel: Parish Church of the Holy Cross

Church Patron Saints: The Holy Cross

Church Location: Ilam Moor Ln, Ilam, Staffordshire DE6 2AZ, United Kingdom -- Tel.: +44 1335 310216

Country Name: England

Location: Staffordshire, West Midlands

Directions to Site: Located off (N) the A52, 4-5 km NW of Ashbourne, 60-65 km ESE of Manchester

Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Lichfield

Font Location in Church: Inside the church

Century and Period: 11th century [basin only], Medieval [composite font?]

Cognate Fonts: a similar base found on the East Meon No.2 font (England)

Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Peter Fairweather, of www.churchmousewebsite.co.uk, to the Staffordshire Past Track, Staffordshire Arts and Museum Service, to Craig Thornber, of www.thornber.net, and to Timothy Marlow for the additional photographs of this font.

Font Notes: Click to view font notes

No entry for Ilam found in the Domesday survey. Browne (1886) compares this font to the one at Wilne, Derbyshire, and argues that the regularity of those pillars on the Ilam font denotes the "considerable strides" made between the two fonts, though he reckons that "the design and the execution of the Wilne font are very far superior to the Ilam font". Cox & Harvey (1907) describe it as early Norman, with "remarkable rude figures under an arcading". In Pevsner (1975 c1974): "Font. Of cauldron shape, Norman, with extrememly barbaric figures and beasts." Sharp (2000) describes the baptismal font at Ilam as Saxon and adds that the ornamentation "may illustrate scenes from the Life of St Bertram (borrowed from St Berthelme of France), according to which the grief-stricken Mercian prince became a hermit after the death of his Irish wife; nearing the end of their journey from her homeland, the princess was devoured by wolves as she gave birth alone while Bertram sought a midwife." Sharp's iconographic association may deserve more credit than his dating of this font to a Saxon period for, as Bond (1908) warns, there is "a set of sculptured fonts which have been credited with undue antiquity, owing to the rudeness or uncouthness of their ornament; but it by no means follows that what is archaic is always ancient. This remark may apply to such fonts as those at Ilam [...]" On-site notes: the round basin is almost cylindrical, slightly wider at top, and mounted on a prismatic support and a rectangular lower base; there is an arcade with six round arches encircling the basin sides; the arches contain the following scenes/figures [Left to Right]: 1)Agnus Dei with a dove perched on the cross; 2)lion eating a human head, with another human head under the belly of the lion; 3)sad-looking person; 4)person standing, frontal; 5)lion eating a human head; 6)last arch shows two people, standing frontal (3/4 view of front) holding hands [marriage scene?], a person on the left has his right hand raised in benediction. The font well has lead lining with a central drainage hole. The base has a peculiar shape, a truncated pyramid around a cube [this base is 19th-century; it is not clear whether the original base, looking like a plain cylindrical extension of the basin, was a part of the original block, or a separate piece]. There have been some repairs, though minimal. Evidence of metal staples around the rim indicate the earlier presence of a lid and locking mechanism. The index of the William Salt Library, Stafford [www.staffordshire.gov.uk/live/pdf/archives/fis-lei.pdf] lists three nineteenth-century illustrations of this font under references SV V.6a (sepia drawing dated 1826 by 'J.C.B.' [John Chessall Buckler]), SV V.7b (sepia drawing dated 1839 by 'J.B.' [John Buckler]) and SV V.8 (lithograph dated 1855 by 'G.R.M.'). The drawings illustrate the changes to the font: the one dated 1826 shows the font on a plain cylindrical extension that appears part of the font and resting directly on the ground, whereas the 1839 drawing shows the font stripped of the cylindrical addition and mounted on a new base; the 1885 lithograph by 'G.R.M' was obviously based on an earlier image or reproduction of this font and it shows a different side of the basin as well. This lithograph shows the font covered with a crude wooden cover. A sketch of this font from 1849 is reported among the papers of Sir John G. Wilkinson kept in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. [We are grateful to Peter Fairweather, of www.churchmousewebsite.co.uk, to the Staffordshire Past Track, Staffordshire Arts and Museum Service, and to Craig Thornber, of www.thornber.net, for the additional photographs of this font]

COORDINATES

Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal: 53.053485, -1.803478

Church Latitude & Longitude DMS: 53° 3′ 12.55″ N, 1° 48′ 12.52″ W

UTM: 30U 580198 5878890

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone, sandstone?

Font Shape: cylindrical (mounted)

Basin Interior Shape: round

Basin Exterior Shape: round

Rim Thickness: 9-11 cm*

Diameter (inside rim): 61 cm*

Diameter (includes rim): 81-82 cm*

Basin Depth: 30 cm*

Height of Basin Side: 57 cm*

Basin Total Height: 57 cm*

Height of Base: 46 cm*

Font Height (less Plinth): 103 cm*

Font Height (with Plinth): 119 cm*

Square Base Dimensions: 46 x 47 cm*

Notes on Measurements: * BSI on-site

LID INFORMATION

Date: unknown

Material: wood,

Apparatus: no

Notes: [cf. FontNotes]

REFERENCES

Bond, Francis, Fonts and Font Covers, London: Waterstone, 1985 c1908

Browne, G.F. (George Forrest), 8, January 1886, Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, 1886, pp. 164-184; r["References"]

Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907

Pevsner, Nikolaus, Staffordshire, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975 c1974

Sharp, Mick, The Way and the Light, London: Aurum Press, 2000

Wilkinson, John Gardner, Catalogue of the papers of Sir John Gardner Wilkinson, 1797-1875, Oxford: Bodleian Library, Dept. of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts, 1997