Wing nr. Leighton Buzzard No. 1 / Winge / Witchunge / Witehunge

There is an entry for this Wing [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SP8822/wing/] [accessed 28 August 2015], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it]. Parker (1850) reports a Perpendicular font in this church, and refers to an engraving of it in Lipscomb (vol. iii, p. 527). Sheahan (1862) reports the old church "completely restored and repaired in 1850 by Mr. George Gilbert Scott [...] The handsome font is octagon, each aide containing a shield carved with emblematical devices, such as the instruments of torture used in the passion and death of Our Saviour"; Sheahan (ibid.), too, refers to the illustration of the font in Lipscomb [cf. supra]. Described in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a noteworthy example of the Perpendicular style of baptismal fonts. Tyrrell-Green (1928) describes it as one of several fonts of the Perpendicular style ornamented with "shields bearing various emblems of the Passion". Noted similarly in Pevsner (1960). Hutton (1957) dates it 15th-century. The font consists of an octagonal basin the sides of which are deeply carved with charged shileds within a quatrefoil within a circle; the motifs on the shields are the Instruments of the Passion; prominent mouldings at the upper and lower rims of the basin, as well as on the lower base; the underbowl of the basin has demi-figures of angels at the angles; the panels of the octagonal pedestal base have deeply-carved cinquefoil arches or windows. The wooden cover is octagonal and flat. The Wing Village website [http://www.wingvillage.co.uk/allsaints3.htm] [accessed 2 November 2007] cites information gathered from the parish account books for the years 1535/36 which record the installation of a new font cover, presumably to go on the later font. This is obviously not the cover now in use. [NB: this church has also the base of a Norman 'Aylesbury group' font which stood in the porch ca. 1960 [cf. Index entry Wing No. 2]].