Locking

Results: 14 records

Click to view images and/or subjects

BF01: human figure - male? - standing - arms strached out to the sides

Scene Description: North-West corner -- the figure wears a skirt (?) split in the middle

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 28 July 1998 by BSI

BF02: human figure - female - wearing headdress - wimple

Scene Description: North-East corner -- some times identified as a warrior wearing a helmet; the breasts are lightly incised, perhaps a later addition?

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 28 July 1998 by BSI

BF03: human figure - female - wearing headdress

Scene Description: South-West corner -- unlike the figure in the NE corner, this one has breasts clearly carved by the original artist -- see another perspective of this figure in the next image

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 28 July 1998 by BSI

BF04: human figure - female - wearing headdress

Scene Description: South-West corner -- unlike the figure in the NE corner, this one has breasts clearly carved by the original artist -- note the head-dress in this view -- see another perspective of this figure in the previous image

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 28 July 1998 by BSI

BF05: human figure - male? - standing - arms stretched out to the sides

Scene Description: South-East corner: the figure wears a short skirt

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 28 July 1998 by BSI

animal - reptile - snake - 2 - intertwined

Scene Description: basin, east side -- two pairs of serpents made of beade tape form braids, the spaces in the braids filled with varied motifs

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 28 July 1998 by BSI

design element - motifs

Scene Description: several rather stylised: floral (4-petal, 5-petals), geometric, beads, etc., in the spandrels created by the bodies of the intertwined serpents

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 28 July 1998 by BSI

design element - motifs - chevron - nested chevrons

Scene Description: seen here on the left side of the basin

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 28 July 1998 by BSI

view of basin

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

Copyright Instructions: PD

view of basin - detail

Scene Description: detail of one of the female figures at the angles

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 28 July 1998 by BSI

view of church exterior - southeast view

Image Source: digital photograph taken 8 April 2010 by Ruth Sharville [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1793712] [accessed 18 April 2017]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of church exterior - southwest view

Scene Description: Source caption: "Locking village church tower. Built in 1380, the tower is the oldest external part of St Augustine's Parish "

Image Source: digital photograph taken 27 July 2011 by Jaggery [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3131811] [accessed 18 April 2017]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of font

Image Source: digital image of an engraving in Paley (1844: unpaged)

Copyright Instructions: PD

view of font and cover

Image Source: digital image of a photograph taken 28 July 1998 by BSI

INFORMATION

FontID: 00298LOC

Church/Chapel: Parish Church of St. Augustine

Church Patron Saints: St. Augustine of Hippo

Church Location: Lychgate Park, Locking, Weston-super-Mare, BS24 8DA, United Kingdom -- Tel.: +44 1934 822857

Country Name: England

Location: Somerset, South West

Directions to Site: Located off the B3368, S of the A371, 5 km ESE of Weston-super-Mare

Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Bath & Wells

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

Century and Period: 12th century (late?) [basin only] [composite font], Medieval [composite]

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

Font Notes: Click to view font notes

No entry found for Locking in the Domesday survey. A font here is noted in Rutter (1829): "In this church is a very ancient and curious font". Described and illustrated in Paley (1844). Noted in Kelly's Directory of 1883. In Bond (1908). Described in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Norman period, one of three in the county [Portbury and Portishead are the others] that have a square inner well in the basin. Wade & Wade (1929) write: "a very interesting old square font of Transitional date, with quaint figures at the angles". Described and illustrated in Pevsner (1958): "Square, Norman, and most interesting than most Norman fonts in Somerset. At the angles four primitively carved figures stretching out their long arms to join hands. The four panels are decorated with beaded plaits which turn out to be snakes." On-site notes: the basin of the Locking font is square inside and out; three of its sides are ornamented with stylised snakes made of dotted-tape interlace, while the fourth has two bands of large chevron motif; at each corner of the basin is a figure: the ones on the S-W and N-E corners appear to be female and have breasts and head-dress; the ones of the N-W and S-E appear to be male; all of them have their arms stretch backwards, the hands almost touching in the middle of the basin sides. Paley (1844) does not mention the gender difference, nor does the illustration shown in his book display the carved breasts of two of the figures. Bond (1908) writes: "At Locking [...] is an archaic bowl on modern supports; here also archaism does not spell antiquity; for the knights wear the flat-topped helmet that was in fashion in the last half of the twelfth century [...]. Their hands are locked together by the way of a pun, it has been suggested, on the name of the vilage [i.e., Locking]; unfortunately for this ingenious explanation, the clasped hands also occur on the holy water stoup at Kilpeck, [...] Herefeordshire" and Bond proceeds to suggest that this motif may refer perhaps to the Scandinavian Vulcan or devil "Lôk" or "Loké" whose symbol was the serpent. Bond (ibid.) also mentions the simple interlacing motif probably of Normandy derivation and the "beaded guilloche" pattern, only "the knights". Paley (1844) talks about armour and helmets, but not of women or head-dresses; his illustration [from ca. 1844] shows a single column as base but, by the time Bond wrote about this font [ca. 1908], it had already acquired four modern corner shafts which still exist today [July 1998]. The entry for this church in Historic England [Listing NGR: ST3635459637] notes: "Parish church (Anglican). Late C14/early C15, 1814/16, 1833, some later restoration […] Cll/C12 font, square, 3 sides have ornate strapwork, south only chevron, at each corner figures whose outstretched arms meet; C19 work has damaged heads and added 4 neo-Romanesque shafts at corners and a massive central shaft; stands on plain plinth in tower."

COORDINATES

Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal: 51.332278, -2.91471

Church Latitude & Longitude DMS: 51° 19′ 56.2″ N, 2° 54′ 52.96″ W

UTM: 30U 505942 5686780

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone, limestone?

Font Shape: rectangular (mounted)

Basin Interior Shape: rectangular

Basin Exterior Shape: rectangular

Rim Thickness: 10-12 cm*

Diameter (inside rim): 50 x 42 cm* [square]

Basin Depth: 25 cm*

Height of Basin Side: 43-44 cm*

Height of Base: 48 cm* (includes low plinth cols are on)

Font Height (less Plinth): 92 cm*

Font Height (with Plinth): 108 cm*

Trapezoidal Basin: 74 x 76 cm*

Notes on Measurements: * BSI on-site

LID INFORMATION

Date: modern

Material: wood,

Notes: modern square lid now covers the basin inner well

REFERENCES

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

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

Kelly, Eric Robert, Kelly's Directory of Somersetshire with the city of Bristol, London: Kelly & Co., 1883

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

Paley, Frederick Apthorp, Illustrations of Baptismal Fonts, London, UK: John van Voorst, 1844

Pevsner, Nikolaus, North Somerset and Bristol, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1958

Rutter, John, Delineations of the North Western Division of the County of Somerset, and of its [...], Shaftesbury; London: Published by the Author; Longman, Rees & Co. [...], 1829

Tyrrell-Green, E., Baptismal Fonts Classified and Illustrated, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge: The Macmillan Co., 1928

Wade, G.H., Somerset, London: Methurn & Co., 1929