Toller Porcorum / Great Tolle / Swines Toller / Swynestolre / Tolre

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Results: 19 records

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B01: design element - motifs - floral or foliage - 5

Scene Description: in each of the five panels of the octagonal basin [Tudor flower, rose, etc.]

Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission to reproduce

LB01: design element - motifs - Y motif - tendril or volute

Scene Description: the Y-shape motif ends in tendrils or volutes at both ends

Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission to reproduce

LB02: animal - mammal - ram - head

Scene Description: at the left end of the Y-shaped motif; a tendril or volute at the other end

Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission to reproduce

LB03: design element - motifs - Y motif

Scene Description: a tendril or volute at the left end, it shares the ram's head of the next Y-motif at the right end

Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission to reproduce

LB04: design element - motifs - moulding

Scene Description: all around the lower side of the basin

Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission to reproduce

LBS01: design element - motifs - triangle

Scene Description: in the spandrel of the Y-shaped motif

Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission to reproduce

LBS02: design element - motifs

Scene Description: shaped like a vertical arrow with another motif atop

Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission to reproduce

LBS03: design element - motifs

Scene Description: damaged, somewhat like a reversed exclamation mark

Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission to reproduce

view of basin - detail

Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission to reproduce

view of basin - detail

Scene Description: Source caption: "Toller Porcorum, Ss. Andrew and Peter Church: The rare "double" font. The top part of the font dating from c15th."

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 April 2017 by Michael Garlick [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5348986] [accessed 28 January 2018]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of basin - interior

Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission to reproduce

view of church exterior in context - southeast view

Scene Description: Source caption: "Toller Porcorum : St Andrew & St Peter Church. In the centre of the village, occupying a small hillock, is the medieval church of St Andrew and St Peter (the dedication is sometimes referred to as St Peter and St Andrew, or simply St Andrew)."

Image Source: digital photograph taken 19 August 2017 by Lewis Clarke [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5507958] [accessed 28 January 2018]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of church interior - nave - looking east

Image Source: digital photograph taken 7 September 2012 by Basher Eyre [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3202134] [accessed 28 January 2018]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of church interior - nave - looking west

Image Source: digital photograph taken 7 September 2012 by Basher Eyre [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3202093] [accessed 28 January 2018]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of font

Image Source: Peter Fairweather of Lincoln

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of font and cover

Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission to reproduce

view of font and cover

Scene Description: Source caption: "Toller Porcorum, Ss. Andrew and Peter Church: The rare "double" font. The top part dates from the 15th century. The bottom part, roughly carved with a ram's head is far older, though its precise date is not known. It has been suggested that it was part of a Roman altar; there is a shallow bowl on top of it."

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 April 2017 by Michael Garlick [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5348983] [accessed 28 January 2018]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of font and cover - upper view

Image Source: digital photograph taken 7 September 2012 by Basher Eyre [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3202148] [accessed 28 January 2018]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of font and cover in context

Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission to reproduce

INFORMATION

FontID: 01024TOL

Church/Chapel: Church of St. Andrew [some sources have St. Peter and St. Andrew]

Church Patron Saints: St. Andrew [St. Peter & St. Andrew?]

Church Location: Toller Porcorum, Beamister DT2, Dorset, UK

Country Name: England

Location: Dorset, South West

Directions to Site: Located off (S) the A356, 16 km WWN of Dorchester

Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Salisbury

Historical Region: Hundred of Tollerford

Font Location in Church: Inside the church, to the left of the entrance

Century and Period: [composite font], Norman / Roman [composite]

Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Peter Fairweather, of www.churchmousewebsite.co.uk, and to Gerald Duke, of www.martinstown.co.uk, for the information on, and photographs of this font.

Church Notes: Hutchins (1861-73) refers to a 14th-century license "to make a chantry in the church of St. Andrew, in Swine Toller" but he mentions also that "another ancient deed says it was dedicated to St. Peter". Hutchins adds that the church "contains nothing remarkable".

Font Notes: Click to view font notes

There is an entry for Toller [Fratrum and Porcorum] [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/XX0000/toller-fratrum-and-porcorum/] [accessed 28 January 2018], but it mentions neither cleric not church in it. Described in Holmes (1922) and in Long (1923) as a baptismal font that is supposed to have once served as a Roman altar. Listed in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as a tub-shaped baptismal font of the Norman period; he describes it as "curious" because its "adornment of volutes causes the whole to assume the form of a large Ionic capital." Noted in White (1932) as made of two parts: the upper part octagonal and made of red sandstone, without a drain and thought to be of the 15th century; the lower part, probably of Portland stone, "appears to have been a heathen altar, belonging to the period of the Roman occupation in Britain." Mee (1939) writes: "Here is a font at which we can hardly look unmoved, for the stone was part of a shrine in this country before it was England. Norman and Saxon fonts we have seen, but in this is something Roman. The actual bowl of the font is very shallow, a piece of brown stone shaped in medieval days with a little rough carving on it. What is remarkable is the pedestal on which the shallow bowl is laid. By lifting the bowl we can just see that the pedestal is hollowed out at the top for a few inches, which may have been done at some time later than the Romans. What appears to be beyond the question is that the pedestal itself is part of a Roman altar. It has carving at four corners, a spiral at three and a ram's head looking down at the fourth." The cylindrical main body is ornamented with the volutes mentioned in Tyrrell-Green, at least one of which end's in a ram's head; the volutes have other motifs in the spandrels; the sides of the upper volume of the font have square panels, each with a four-leaf motif in it. The lower part or base is circular and appears to be of a later date. It has a flat octagonal lid of modern appearance. Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk], writes: "In two parts, upper of Ham Hill stone, octagonal, five of the sides with paterae and panels, 15th century, lower part of white limestone in form of large capital with volutes and one ram's head at angles and symbols between moulded base, perhaps 12th or 13th century. Closer inspection reveals the upper bowl is deeper that it at first appears as it is recessed into the lower part [...]. Removal of the bowl reveals what may perhaps have formally been a much earlier baptismal font or perhaps, as the Royal Commission description suggests, it was the capital of a far larger structure and this recess was intended to support a cross beam of some sort." Duke (ibid.) also makes reference to Legg's paper read to the Dorset Natural History [...] in 1922 [cf. supra], in which the author claims a Roman pedigree for the lower part, and further suggests that the re-use took place in Norman times. In Newman & Pevsner (1972): "Font. The bowl proper small, octagonal, and Perp[endicular] with fleurons, but the stem a large Norman capital of white stone with volutes." [We are grateful to Peter Fairweather, of www.churchmousewebsite.co.uk, and to Gerald Duke, of www.martinstown.co.uk, for the information on, and photographs of this font]

COORDINATES

Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal: 50.775, -2.62

Church Latitude & Longitude DMS: 50° 46′ 30″ N, 2° 37′ 12″ W

UTM: 30U 526793 5624873

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone, Ham Hill stone [basin] -- limestone [base]

Font Shape: octagonal (mounted)

Basin Interior Shape: round

Basin Exterior Shape: octagonal

Rim Thickness: 8 cm*

Diameter (inside rim): 35 cm*

Diameter (includes rim): 51 cm*

Basin Depth: 17 cm*

Basin Total Height: 18 cm*

Height of Base: 67 cm*

Font Height (less Plinth): 85 cm*

Font Height (with Plinth): 107 cm [plinth= 22 cm*]

Notes on Measurements: * [all measurements courtesy of Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk] -- [White (1932) gives the height of the base as 27 in.]

LID INFORMATION

Date: modern

Material: wood,

Apparatus: no

REFERENCES

Holmes, Edric, Wanderings in Wessex: an Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter, London: Robert Scott Roxburghe House, [1922]

Long, E.T., "Dorset church fonts", 44, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, 1923, pp. 62-76; r["References"]

Mee, Arthur, The King's England. Dorset: Thomas Hardy's Country, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1939

Pevsner, Nikolaus, Dorset, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972

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

White, R.H., "St. Peter's Church, Toller Porcorum", LIII, lxxviii-lxxix, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1932