Harpole / Horpol

Image and permission received from the author (letter of 26 October 2013)

Results: 17 records

Click to view images and/or subjects

B01: symbol - tree - Tree of life

Scene Description: east side of the basin

Image Source: detail of a photograph [edited] taken 7 April 1982 by Timothy Marlow

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

B02: animal - mammal - lion - facing lions - gardant - eating from a tree - 2

Scene Description: East side of the basin: one on each side of the Tree of life [cf. FontNotes]

Image Source: detail of a photograph [edited] taken 7 April 1982 by Timothy Marlow

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

B04: design element - patterns - scalloped

Scene Description: Southwest side of the basin

Image Source: detail of a photograph [edited] taken 7 April 1982 by Timothy Marlow

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

B05: design element - motifs - plant

Scene Description: Southwest side of the basin -- a large one, almost like a tree, on the opposite side of Tree of Life

Image Source: detail of a photograph [edited] taken 7 April 1982 by Timothy Marlow

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

design element - patterns - scrollwork

Scene Description: east side of the basin

Image Source: detail of a photograph [edited] taken 7 April 1982 by Timothy Marlow

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

view of basin - east side

Image Source: detail of a photograph [edited] taken 7 April 1982 by Timothy Marlow

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

view of basin - northeast side

Image Source: detail of a photograph [edited] taken 7 April 1982 by Timothy Marlow

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

view of basin - northeast side

Image Source: detail of a photograph [edited] taken 7 April 1982 by Timothy Marlow

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

view of basin - south side

Image Source: detail of a photograph [edited] taken 7 April 1982 by Timothy Marlow

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

view of basin - southeast side

Image Source: detail of a photograph [edited] taken 7 April 1982 by Timothy Marlow

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

view of basin - southwest side

Image Source: detail of a photograph [edited] taken 7 April 1982 by Timothy Marlow

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

view of basin - west side

Image Source: photograph in the CRSBI (2014) [www.crsbi.ac.uk/site/889/] [accessed 9 November 2014]

Copyright Instructions: PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE -- IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE

view of church exterior - south view

Image Source: digital photograph taken 16 December 2005 by Ian Rob [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/91828] [accessed 9 November 2014]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of font and cover in context - northeast side

Image Source: photograph taken 7 April 1982 by Timothy Marlow

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

view of font and cover in context - southeast side

Image Source: photograph taken 7 April 1982 by Timothy Marlow

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

view of font cover

Image Source: photograph taken 7 April 1982 by Timothy Marlow

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

view of iconographic program

Image Source: drawing by Henry E.L. Dryden, in [www.vads.ahds.ac.uk/large.php?pic=DR_25_136_002&cmd=advsearch&page=14&mode=boolean&words=henry&field=all&oper=or&idSearch=boolean&HDC=1&vadscoll=The+Sir+Henry+Dryden+Collection] [accessed 18 March 2008]

Copyright Instructions: No known copyright restriction – Fair Dealing

INFORMATION

FontID: 00296HAR

Church/Chapel: Parish Church of All Saints

Church Patron Saints: All Saints

Church Location: School Lane (at High St.), Harpole, Northamptonshire, NN7 4DJ, United Kingdom -- Tel.: +44 1604 831621

Country Name: England

Location: Northamptonshire, East Midlands

Directions to Site: Located off (N) the A4500, 6 km WSW of Northampton

Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Peterborough

Historical Region: Hundred of Nobottle [in Domesday]

Font Location in Church: Inside the church, just inside the entrance

Date: ca. 1140-1150?

Century and Period: 12th century (mid?), Late Norman

Workshop/Group/Artisan: Workshop from St Peter's, Northampton

Cognate Fonts: The ornamentation style akin to that on the fonts at Bridekirk (Cumbria) and Haddenham (Bucks.) Also the fonts at Mears Ashby, Green's Norton and some Welsh ones, for instance [cf. FontNotes]

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

Font Notes: Click to view font notes

There is an entry for this Harpole [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SP6960/harpole/] [accessed 9 November 2014]; it reports a priest in it but does not mention a church, though there probably was one here. Parker (1849) writes: "The font and shaft are cylindrical, the former richly covered with Norman sculpture." Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a Norman font. Described and illustrated in Bond (1908): Norman cylindrical mounted font with lead-lined basin. Like the fonts at Bridekirk and Haddenham, its ornamentation consists of intricate scrollwork and a tree in the centre with a fierce beast (salamander? Dragon?) on either side, around the basin sides; scallop motif on the back [NB: the animals are actually lions, depicted in the traditional manner, with the tail around and over the back]. Mee (1945) writes: "Coming in by the Norman doorway, the eye is drawn at once to the chief treasure of the church, a marvellously carved 12th century font. A complicated series of designs represents the tree of life, and two dragons whose bodies trail away in long coils are devouring branches. There are other grotesque symbols, such as the beast biting its own tail, and the whole is filled in with fish-scale design. We can only guess at the conception the sculptor strove to express in this most unusual work, but the boldness of the design stands out as clearly today as when it left its maker's hands. The remarkable mass of carving covers only one side of the bowl, the other being a mass of overlapping leaves, or fish-scale" [NB: at first sight the animals appear to be dragons, but on closer inspection one can discern the hind legs and the tail over the back characteristic of the Norman lion -- the heads, however, are not leonine, except for the highlighted manes]. In Zarnecki (1953). Maguire (1970) suggests that this font, like the one at nearby Mears Ashby, could be attributed to the workshop responsible for the decoration of the west portal at Northampton St Peter's. In Pevsner & Cherry (1973): "Norman, circular, very closely entwined leaf trails and dragons; a remarkable tangle." Described and illustrated in the CRSBI (2014): "the font and the south nave doorway outer capitals are both products of the lively workshop from St Peter's, Northampton, active in the 1140s and '50s. Other fonts by these sculptors are found in the county at Green's Norton, Paulerspury, Dodford, Tiffield and Weedon Lois, and nearby at Maids' Moreton (Bucks)." Thurlby (2006) notes that the appearance of the imbrication motif on fonts "speaks clearly of the iconographic connection between death and resurrection and their simulation in Baptism"

COORDINATES

Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal: 52.241971, -0.990888

Church Latitude & Longitude DMS: 52° 14′ 31.1″ N, 0° 59′ 27.2″ W

UTM: 30U 637175 5789853

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone, type unknown

Number of Pieces: two?

Font Shape: cylindrical (mounted)

Basin Interior Shape: round

Basin Exterior Shape: round

Drainage Notes: lead lining

Rim Thickness: 9.5 cm [calculated]

Diameter (inside rim): 56 cm*

Diameter (includes rim): 75 cm*

Basin Total Height: 44 - 46 cm*

Height of Central Column: 55 - 57 cm [calculated]

Font Height (less Plinth): 101 cm*

Notes on Measurements: * CRSBI (2014)

LID INFORMATION

Material: wood,

Apparatus: no

Notes: round platform base with low pyramid atop; knob fifial; gilded arrises and decorated sides

REFERENCES

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

Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland. Accessed: 2006-10-23 00:00:00. URL: http://www.crsbi.ac.uk.

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

Kroesen, Justin E.A., The Interior of the medieval village church = Het middeleeuwse Dorpskerkinterieur, Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 2004

Maguire, Henry P., "A twelfth century workshop in Northampton", 9, 1 (1970), Gesta, 1970, pp. 11-25; r["References"]

Mee, Arthur, The King's England: Northamptonshire, country of spires and stately homes, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1945

Parker, John Henry, Architectural notices of the churches of the Archdeaconry of Northampton: Deaneries of Higham Ferrers and Haddon, London; Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1849

Pevsner, Nikolaus, Northamptonshire, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973

Thurlby, Malcolm, Romanesque architecture and sculpture in Wales, Little Logaston, Woonton, Almeley, Herts.: Logaston Press, 2006

Zarnecki, George, Later English Romanesque sculpture, 1953