Marks Tey / Mark's Tey

Illustrated in a 1849 print by HWK, at the SEAX-Essex Archives Online (ref. I/Mb 348/1/1). The Church Builder (issue no. 47 January 1873: 21) notes: "At Mark's Tey, Essex, is a font carved out of a solid block of wood, with pinnacles at the angles, and canopied sides with traces of subjects carved in relief on the panels; it is lined with lead." The Antiquary (issue of Nov. 1882: 218) reports a visit by the Essex Archaeological Society to Marks Tey, where they note "an ancient wooden font". William Morris (1883) writes:”In the church is an early 15th century oak-panelled font of fine character, partly mutilated in old times, but now constantly ill-used by being pierced afresh with nails each time the neglect of the church is thought to be covered by the usual almost childish festival decorations.” [source: Annual Report of The SPAB – VI (1883) by William Morris http://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1883/spab9.htm]. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907). Described and illustrated in Bond (1908) as a "fine oak font, c.1500" and its "Jacobean cover"; the illustration in Bond shows a fairly typical example of an octagonal font with features of the Perpendicular style, without visible figures, although the blind arches on the sides of the basin may have been meant to be painted or otherwise filled in. It has a cover of about the same period. Noted with an illustration in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (Essex, 1916-1923): "Font [...] of oak, octagonal bowl, panelled sides divided by buttresses, each panel formerly enclosing a carved figure --probably a seated figure-- on a throne and an evangelistic symbol alternately, but now mostly cut away, modern traceried heads to panels; moulded underside of bowl carved with roses, panelled and traceried stem with carved roses and moulded base, 15th-century. Cover of octagonal pyramid form with moulded fillets, early 17th-century." Described and illustrated in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as "a handsome octagonal font, which in its plan and in the details of its ornament resembles the typical stone font of the fifteenth century." Noted in Pevsner (1976) and in Bettley & Pevsner (2007): "Font. C15, octagonal. The remarkable thing is that it is of oak. Stem with tracery panels with roses in the centres, bowl with tracery panels formerly with seated figures." [NB: the RCHM (ibid.) notes a holy-water stoup of uncertain date in the south porch -- not indexed here]