Lewes No. 1

There are two entries for Lewes in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/TQ4110/lewes/] [accessed 26 September 2014], but neither mentions a church or cleric in it. Baptismal font noted in Gough (1792): "shaped like a barrel, the body adorned with fretwork, and an upper and lower band or fascia of rounds and quatrefoils, and set against a pillar." Paley (1844) describes it as a "cylindrical Norman Font, ornamented with the interlaced work so frequent in that style" and dates it toward the end of the 12th century; he identifies the stone as being "Eastbourne sand-stone" and notes the previous existence of iron staples for the cover. Noted in Lewis' Dictionary of 1848. Hussey (1852) writes: "The font of this church is peculiar. The form is cylindrical without a stem, and the pattera round the centre bears some resemblance to wicker-work. The upper border, consisting of pellets or studs, is an example of the neglect of measurement and calculation, which I imagine to have been common, in ancient times previous to commencing operations on the ornamental carving; for the pellets are not all of the same size, as if the consequence of there not being space to complete the last-worked like the others." Described in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a "handsomely carved" baptismal font of the Norman period ornamented with "interwaven basket-work pattern". Noted in Harrison (1920) as Norman. Described in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as the finest specimen of a "small group of tub-shaped fonts with [...] ornament of interlacing diagonal strands, resembling basketwork", of the Norman period in Sussex (the group includes: Lewes St. Anne's, Denton and East Dean). Illustrated in Needham (1944). Described and illustrated in Whiteman (1994) as having a similar pattern of decoration to that on the font at Denton. Described and illustrated in The Corpus of Romanesque Sulpture in Britain and Ireland (2008) with some valuable comments on the eventful life of this object: it notes the 1925 restoration (as stated on the modern plinth); it further notes that "it had been cut off when the font was positioned against a wall [it was set against a pillar ca. 1792 -- cf. Gough supra] and when the font was moved once again to a free-standing position a new section had to be made. Later the eroded original section was discovered under the floor and restored to its former position, with stone inderts on either side as it did not fit properly." Lastly the CRSBI (ibid.) refers to a communication from Dr. Freda Anderson [to the author of the CRSBI entry, K.A. Morrison] in which Anderson claims that this object "was not a font at all originally, but a capital from Lewes Priory which was later hollowed out to produce a font".