Tewkesbury Abbey / Tedechesberie / Teodechesberie / Teodekesberie / Teokburie

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Results: 18 records

Click to view images and/or subjects

design element - architectural - column - clustered columns - with capitals and bases - 8

Scene Description: Source caption: "The medieval, stone font at Tewkesbury Abbey; a wooden structure was added atop it at a later date."

Image Source: digital photograph taken 29 July 2018 by Ethan Doyle White [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medieval_Font_at_Tewkesbury_Abbey.jpg] [accessed 1 February 2019]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

design element - motifs - floral - ball-flower

Image Source: digital photograph 31 July 2023 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from trhe author (e-mail of 19 May 2024]

view of base

Image Source: digital photograph 31 July 2023 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from trhe author (e-mail of 19 May 2024]

view of basin - north side

Scene Description: a 19thC basin raised on a 14thC pedestal base

Image Source: digital photograph 31 July 2023 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from trhe author (e-mail of 19 May 2024]

view of church exterior - southeast view

Scene Description: Source caption: "Tewkesbury Abbey was founded in 1087; however, building of the present structure seen here did not start until 1102. Built to house Benedictine monks, the Abbey was was consecrated in 1121 (Norman era)."

Image Source: digital photograph taken 14 July 2011 by Saffron Blaze [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tewkesbury_Abbey_2011.jpg] [accessed 1 February 2019]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of church exterior - west façade

Image Source: edited detail of a digital photograph taken 3 August 2014 by Rodw [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tewkesbury_Abbey_9.jpg] [accessed 3 February 2019]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0

view of church exterior - west view

view of church interior - ceiling - detail

Image Source: digital photograph 31 July 2023 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from trhe author (e-mail of 19 May 2024]

view of church interior - looking east

Scene Description: Source caption: "Tewkesbury Abbey: The Norman nave" -- the font and cover by the south arcade

Image Source: digital photograph taken 12 July 2017 by Michael Garlick [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5478904] [accessed 1 Fabruary 2019]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of church interior - looking east

Image Source: digital photograph 31 July 2023 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from trhe author (e-mail of 19 May 2024]

view of church interior - looking west

Scene Description: Source caption: "Tewkesbury Abbey: The Norman nave" -- the font and cover are visible on the left, by the south arcade

Image Source: digital photograph taken 12 July 2017 by Michael Garlick [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5479019] [accessed 1 Fabruary 2019]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of church interior - nave - ceiling

Scene Description: Source caption: "Tewkesbury Abbey: The magnificent lierne vaulted roof".

Image Source: digital photograph taken 12 July 2017 by Michael Garlick [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5461393] [accessed 1 Fabruary 2019]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of church interior - nave - ceiling - boss - fragment

Scene Description: A fragment of a former boss; the label reads: "Two kings are shown with crowns and long gowns, the third is virtually hidden. In front of them is the star, and behind a winged angel who places his hands on their shoulders to guide them on their journay to Bethlehem."

Image Source: digital photograph taken 11 June 2013 by Nifanion [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Font_in_Tewkesbury_Abbey_(4428).jpg]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of church interior - nave - ceiling - boss - fragment - detail

Image Source: edited detail of a digital photograph taken 11 June 2013 by Nifanion [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Font_in_Tewkesbury_Abbey_(4428).jpg]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of font and cover in context

Image Source: digital photograph taken 11 June 2013 by Nifanion [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Font_in_Tewkesbury_Abbey_(4389).jpg] [accessed 1 February 2019]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of font and cover in context

Image Source: digital photograph 31 July 2023 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from trhe author (e-mail of 19 May 2024]

view of font and cover in context - northwest side

Scene Description: a 19thC basin raised on a 14thC pedestal base

Image Source: digital photograph taken 29 July 2018 by Ethan Doyle White [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Font_at_Tewkesbury_Abbey.jpg] [accessed 1 February 2019]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of object

Scene Description: Source caption: "A bit of history. But what is it? Filled with earth so probably now used as a planter. Outside the main door of Tewkesbury Abbey."

Image Source: digital photograph taken 7 November 2008 by Pauline Eccles [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1037439] [accessed 1 February 2019]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

INFORMATION

FontID: 01126TEW

Church/Chapel: Abbey Church of St. Mary the Virgin [aka Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary]

Church Patron Saints: St. Mary the Virgin

Church Location: Church Street, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire GL20 5RZ

Country Name: England

Location: Gloucestershire, South West

Directions to Site: Located off (E) the A438 and the river, 6 km NNW of Cheltenham

Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Gloucester

Historical Region: Hundred of Tewkesbury

Font Location in Church: Inside the church, near the entrance, W end of the nave, in the centre aisle, opposite the consecration cross

Century and Period: 13th - 14th century [base only] -- 19th century [basin only] [composite font], Medieval [composite]

Cognate Fonts: the base at Teddington St. Nicholas'

Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Colin Smith for his photographs of this church and font

Church Notes: nothing remains of the ca. 715 monastery here; 10thC priory subordinate to Cranborn Abbey, Dorset; present abbey founded 1092, building started 1102;

Font Notes: Click to view font notes

There are three entries for Tewkesbury [variant spellings] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SO8932/tewkesbury/] [accessed 1 February 2019] none of which mentions cleric or church in it. Poole (1842) writes: "The font at Tewkesbury is inscribed, 'One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism'" [NB: this inscription may be on one of the newer parts of the font]. The font and cover are noted and illustrated in Beattie (1844): "In the south transept is a beautiful baptismal Font, with a cover, richly carved, and finished with a cross." [NB: the cover mentioned in Beattie is not the present one dating from 1878-1879; the one shown in Beattie standing on the ground, next to the font, is a low pyramidal octagonal cover reaching about the height of the pedestal base of the latter, therefore likely two feet or so, with crocketed arrises, of a style popular in the Restoration, so, possibly 17th-century]. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Gloucester, vol. 8, 1968) notes: "A church in Tewkesbury existed at the time of the Conquest [...] The church of Tewkesbury in the 11th century is likely to have been not a cell of Cranborne but a minster church [...] the abbey church probably provided a place of worship for the townsmen [...] The font for the removal of which two men were presented in 1661 [...] may have been the one moved into the vestry in 1828 [...] The font in use in the mid-19th century was thought to be of the late 16th century [...] The surviving font has a modern base and bowl; the shaft is early 14th-century, a cluster of eight shafts separated by strings of ball-flowers with a moulded capital, and it looks as though it was found in the course of excavations." Noted in Verey & Brooks (1999-2002): "Font. Dec[orated] stem with eight clustered shafts separated by rows of ballflower; the octofoil Purbeck marble base and capital look C13. Purbeck marble bowl and tall oak canopy by J. O. Scott, 1878-9." A 1885 photograph from the Henry W. Taunt Collection [ref. no.: HT05349], in the Centre for Oxfordshire Studies, illustrates the interior of the church (looking east) showing the font and cover in the context of the nave; the caption notes: "the font, with its 14th-century base and 19th-century bowl -- part of the Victorian restoration by Scott." There is another photograph of this font and cover from the end of the 19th or beginning of the century by Catharine Weed Ward (1851-1913) in the Eastman Archives [m198122910498 [negative: gelatine on glass; 7 x 5 in.; ca. 1891-1912]]. The basin is octagonal and decorated with large quatrefoils with inscribed foliated crosses; the base is multi-lobed, built as a cluster of colonnettes with rosettes at the junctions of the shafts; moulded at top and bottom. Impressive tall font cover, with a pulley system. [NB: there are no other early fonts in the town of Tewkesbury, but Verey & Brooks (ibid.) note: "In the middle of the floor, a brick-lined baptistery, probably […] late C18, with steps at the N[orth] end" in the Old Baptist Chapel, in an alley off Church Street].

COORDINATES

Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal: 51.990253, -2.160428

Church Latitude & Longitude DMS: 51° 59′ 24.91″ N, 2° 9′ 37.54″ W

UTM: 30U 557649 5760287

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone, type unknown

Font Shape: octagonal (mounted)

Basin Interior Shape: round

Basin Exterior Shape: octagonal

INSCRIPTION

Inscription Notes: [cf. FontNotes]

LID INFORMATION

Date: 19th century?, Victorian?

Material: wood,

Apparatus: yes -- pulley system

Notes: [cf. FontNotes about an earlier cover documented ca. 1844]

REFERENCES

Tewkesbury Abbey (a Pitkin guide), Andover, Hants.: Pitkin Pictorials, 1992

Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. Accessed: 2011-06-01 00:00:00. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.

Beattie, William, The Castles and abbeys of England: from the national records, early chronicles, [...], London: George Virtue, 1844

Poole, George Ayliffe, The Appropriate Character of Church Architecture, Leeds; London: T.W. Green; Rivington, Burns, and Houlston and Stoneman, 1842

Verey, David, Gloucestershire, London: Penguin Books, 1999-2002