Wilne / Church Wilne / Great Wilne / Great Wilnez

No individual entry for Wilne found in the Domesday survey. The 'Report of the Hon. Secretary, 1885' published in the Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society (vol. 8, Jan. 1886: xxi) notes: "A paper by the Rev. G.F. Browne, who was unable to be present, upon the 'Saxon Font at Wilne', was also read by the Rev. J. Jourdain." [NB: the text of the paper was included in volume 7 of the Journal. Browne (1886) describes the font at Wilne as "one of the most remarkable stones in the county", and refers to a large-scale "photo-lithograph" of a rubbing made of it published in the Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society in 1885. The font, continues Browne (ibid.), "has six panels, each containing a dragon or birds. The panels are divided by pillars which are deeply indented, something after the manner of the pillars at Durham and Dunfermline, but quite rudely and irregularly, probably the first example of this kind of work." Browne (ibid.) further 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". Browne (ibid.) notes that "The stone composing the font is at present upside down", and, where some have seen a resembland of an inscription, "When the stone is looked at the other way up, it is found that these are the feet of six men". Described in Romilly Allen (1888) as a "font made out of a Saxon cylindrical pillar-cross". Jones (1891) mentions the font at Wilne as "formed out of a sculptured fragment upside-down." Described in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a richly sculptured baptismal font "constructed out of the reversed section of an early Saxon pillar cross." Described and illustrated in Bond (1908) as a font "hollowed out in one of the blocks of the circular stem of an Anglo-Saxon sculptured cross", but it is not clear when the font was made. The sides are ornamented with busy interlace and other motifs. Noted in Pevsner (1978): "Font. Part of a circular Saxon cross with carvings of dragons and birds." Studied in Twomey (2019) and (2022) [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/insular-iconographies/recutting-the-cross-the-anglosaxon-baptismal-font-at-wilne/3624C7F5F9E2FDF737BBED715DC524CE] [accessed 21 April 2023]. A 3D sketch by Twomey [https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/wilne-baptismal-font-5e653528a8f44813919fb3acc3361490] [accessed 9 September 2019] is captioned: "This medieval sandstone baptismal font is located in the nave of the Church of St. Chad in Wilne (Derbyshire), UK. In the medieval period, likely the late eleventh or twelfth century, it was recut from a shaft of a late eighth- or early ninth-century Anglo-Saxon standing cross bearing animal and figural ornament. The triumphal message of the crosses in the landscape was appropriated for the Christian victory over death at baptism. A fire in the early twentieth century destroyed the interior of the church and damaged a third of the font’s ornament, though both have been faithfully restored." A 3D model of the font can be seen in Carolyn Twomey's Digital Humanities site [https://www.carolyntwomey.com/digital] [accessed 19 April 2023]