Freshford nr. Kilkenny No. 2

Described and illustrated in Pike (1989: 20, 49) as the second of "two Medieval fonts outside Freshford Roman Catholic Church, which are no longer in use. These fonts may have come from the ancient monastic Church, successor to one founded in 622 by Bishop St. Lachtan" [cf. Index entry for Freshford No. 1 for the other font, one of the Ossory group]. This font, used now as holy-water stoup, "is octagonal. A man's head reversed, in high relief, is sculpted on one side of the bowl. Another side was arranged for a head that has not been sculpted on it. Two other possible heads may have been broken off the font". The font has a quadrangular pedestal base and is made of limestone.
A set of digital photographs of this font taken 5 September 2024 by A.-K. D. may be seen in Wikipedia [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medieval_baptismal_font_outside_Church_of_St_Lachtain_and_St_Nichol.jpg] [accessed 26 July 2025].
A 3-D model of this font made by b-unicycling may be seen in Sketchfab [https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/freshford-octagonal-font-45208ac306d541d896a2f76bf39a4b5f] [accessed 22 July 2025] with the author's rathe speculative caption: "This is a medieval baptismal font now kept outside the RC Church of St Lachtain and St Nichol in Freshford, but believed to have come from the old St Lachtain’s Church. What I think might have happened why the head is upside down is that one sculptor in the workshop was tasked with the heads (there seem to have been four planned), and a less skilled sculptor was tasked with working on the basin, but he hollowed out the wrong side, so the whole font was somewhat ruined. Hence the second head never being finished. There might have been two finished heads at the other faces, but they look erased/ demolished."