Sudbury No. 1

The font cover is noted in Gough (1792) as an instance "of costly and laboured covers, finished in a rich Gothic style of wood-work [...] supposed of the time of Richard II [i.e., 1377+]. and of Gothic work, reaching to the top of the church, and suspended by a pulley." Described and illustrated in Neale (1825): "Against the westernmost pillar, on the north side of the church is the very curious octagonal and ancient baptismal font […] the cover in wood of rich workmanship is heightened by painting and gilding, and is probably of the date of Henry the Sixth's reign [1421-1471]. The lower compartment opens like a closet, when the ceremony is performed. It rises in arches and pinnacles to a canopy, whence the whole is screened from the dust by a dark blue curtain. The font is of stone, and appears to be of much earlier date than its ornamented cover." The cover is noted in Paley (1844). Lewis' Dictionary of 1848 notes: "the font is very magnificent". Badham (1852) in his book on Sudbury All Saints' church comments on the font at St. Gregory's: "The Church of St. Gregory in this town once possessed a beautiful stone font. It was unfortunately, within a few years, been replaced by a modern one. Some remains of the font we recently observed in a garden in the neighbourhood. The cover, which is a fine specimen of tabernacle work, is still in the Church, and capable of easy restoration." Parker (1855) reports the font as modern. Cox & Harvey (1907) do not list the font at Sudbury St. Gregory's, but describe its cover and the one at Ufford as "two of the best of the Suffolk examples". This cover is described and illustrated in Bond (1908) [NB: the illustration showed in Bond (ibid.) bears the wrong caption ("Sudbury St Peter"), but it is a photograph of the cover and font at St. Gregory's]; the present baptismal font has an octagonal basin with short vertical sides; the panels of the basin are ornamented with architectural motifs; the underbowl has a graded chamfer with buttresses that start at the bottom of the basin and continue all the way down to the lower base; the pedestal of the base is also octagonal and has pairs of slender trefoil (?) arches on each side. Bond (ibid.) lists the cover as a telescopic cover: "the lower stage is so arranged that it can be pushed up to slide over the upper, like the section of a telescope. It is kept in position by a counterpoise in the interior of the upper part, like a modern window sash"; he describes the ones at Sudbury St. Gregory's, Ufford and Castle Acre as "magnificent specimens of this class." [cf. Index entry for Ufford for an illustration of its cover]. A particular characteristic of this font cover and of the one at Ufford is the wooden disc or tester that is located where one would expect to find the finial; it is not a finial but the anchor for a curtain to draw over the cover. As Bond (ibid.) explains referring to the cover at Ufford, "the object of this probably was the preservation of the cover, but the result has been the destruction of many of its delicated pinnacles flicked off as the curtain was drawn aside". Bond (ibid.) refers to an illustration of the Sudbury cover in Neale's Churches (iii, 25), which "shews a wooden tester of classic form with curtains over the font cover; this has now [i.e., ca. 1908] been improved away." James (1930) describes it as "about 12ft. high, with eight tabernacles for images." A recent description of this cover appears in Jenkins (1999): "the medieval font cover is a remarkable work of carpentry, rivalling and perhaps even surpassing that at Ufford. It soars upwards on a series of crocketed gables, each above openings with transoms and mullions. It has been regilded and recoloured and telescopes when the font is in use." The cover is noted and illustrated in Knott's Suffolk Churches, as "much recoloured, and with its statues replaced."