Wrestlingworth / Wrastlingewurde / Wrestlingforth

Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Perpendicular period. The Victoria County History (Bedford, vol. 2, 1908) notes: "The earliest building of which any portion remains [...] was enlarged in the early part of the thirteenth century by the addition of a south aisle to the nave [...] In the north wall is a single blocked twelfth-century light [...] The font at the west end of the nave has an octagonal bowl on a stem, and appears to be of fifteenth-century date, but the upper part of it has been repaired." [NB: we have no information on the font of the 12th-century church here]. The present font consists of an octagonal basin with vertical sides, the panels decorated with deeply-cut tetrafoil windows with a Tudor rose in the centre; the inner bowl of the basin is rounded and lead-lined, with a central drain; the chamfer of the underbowl has a large tetrafoil motif on each panel; the transition between the underbowl and the octagonal pedestal base is rather unsuccessful, a series of thin mouldings in the manner of a graded chamfer; the panels of the pedestal base have cinquefoil arches or niches, some of them damaged; the lower base is also octagonal and moulded; flat and plain cover, modern.