Newbattle / Newbattle Abbey

Desribed and illustrated in Walker (1887): octagonal mounted font of which only the basin is identified as original in the source; all sides are ornamented with shields bearing coats of arms; the source identifies six of them (the eighth side is blank, and the seventh is defaced). The presence of the coat of arms of James Hasmel/Hasmal, abbot of the Newbattle Abbey circa 1550, would date the font to, at the earliest, the mid or late 16th century. Described and illustrated in MacGibbon & Ross (1896-1897): the font "was found at Mavisbank House, some miles distant, about the year 1873, by workmen digging for foundations of proposed new buildings. On the supposition that it contained the arms of Abbott Hasmall, and therefore belonged to Newbattle, it was brought here. It is interesting as being evidently intended, from the coats of arms with which it is adorned, to be a memorial of the royal family during the first half of the sixteenth century." [NB: MacGibbon & Ross (ibid., 258n) are not certain about the 6th shield and cite entry no. 1090 of Henry Laing's Descriptive Catalogue of Ancient Scottish Seals: "'A Boar's head, and on a chief indented 3 mullets, which are probably the arms of James Hasmal, who was abbot of the monastery at this time'"; MacGibbon & Ross state however that Laing "gives no authority for this supposition; while in the Workman MSS. the same arms are assigned to Schewall of that Ilk. Edward Schewall was abbot in 1526 and 1528. When he died is not known. So that it is quite as likely that the arms of the sixth shield are those of Abbot Schewall as that they refer to Abbot Hasmall." [cf. Iconographical data below for identification of the coat of arms]