St. Germans / Saint Germans
Results: 12 records
view of font and cover
Scene Description: the moulded lower base seen here does not appear on Paley's illustration
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © David Ross & Britain Express Ltd, 2016
Image Source: digital photograph taken by David Ross, in Britain Express Ltd. [www.britainexpress.com/images/attractions/editor/St-Germans-2066.jpg] [accessed 21 July 2016]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of font
Scene Description: engraved by Thomas Orlando Sheldon Jewitt (1799–1869), aka Orlando Jewitt; the artist's signature appears below the font, to the right, in the initials OJ -- the moulded lower base is missing in this illustration; it must have been discovered and added later
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © [in the public domain]
Image Source: digital image of an engraving by Orlando Jewitt in Paley (1844: unpaged)
Copyright Instructions: PD
design element - motifs - semicircle (upper row inverted over the lower row)
Scene Description: on one side
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © David Ross & Britain Express Ltd, 2016
Image Source: digital photograph taken by David Ross, in Britain Express Ltd. [www.britainexpress.com/images/attractions/editor/St-Germans-2066.jpg] [accessed 21 July 2016]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
design element - motifs - foliage - 3
Scene Description: on one visible side of the basin; arranged in quatrefoil manner
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © [in the public domain]
Image Source: digital image of an engraving by Orlando Jewitt in Paley (1844: unpaged)
Copyright Instructions: PD
view of church exterior - west portal
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Nilfanion, 2011
Image Source: digital photograph taken 22 February 2011 by Nilfanion [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Germans_Church_west_door.jpg] [accessed 21 July 2016]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
view of church exterior in context - northwest view
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Ian Buchanan, 2009
Image Source: digital photograph taken 18 May 2009 by Ian Buchanan [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stgermanschurchwestfront.JPG] [accessed 21 July 2016]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
view of church exterior - south view
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Nilfanion, 2011
Image Source: digital photograph taken 22 February 2011 by Nilfanion [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Germans_Church.jpg] [accessed 21 July 2016]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
view of church interior - nave - looking east
Scene Description: showing the north aisle as well as the nave
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Nilfanion, 2011
Image Source: digital photograph taken 22 February 2011 by Nilfanion [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Germans_Church_interior.jpg] [accessed 21 July 2016]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
INFORMATION
Font ID: 01450GER
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Century and Period/Style: 12th century (late?), Late Norman
Church / Chapel Name: Parish [former priory] Church of St. Germans
Font Location in Church: Inside the church, in the W end, near the tower door [cf. FontNotes]
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Germanus of Auxerre [aka Germans, German, Germain]
Church Notes: original church may have been 5thC; documented 19thC; Augustinian priory 12thC;
Site Location: Cornwall, South West, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located SW of Saltash, but access is from the W, via either the A38 from the N, or the A374 from the S
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Truro
Additional Comments: altered font / re-cycled font (broken up, then re-built [cf. Font notes]) -- diappeared font? (the ones from the original church here [5th through 11thC])
Font Notes:
Click to view
According to Paley (1844), the font at St. Germans was smashed ca. 1790 and replaced by another in alabaster; around 1840, the then incumbent, Rev. Tobias Furneaux, had all the pieces of the old font "collected from among the rubbish in the tower" and "had the pieces cimented together" with the pillars of the base restored in granite. The two sides of the basin visible in Paley's illustration shows 1)leaf motifs and 2)semi-circle motifs . Paley (ibid.) reports the spandrels of the upper surface as having "Christian emblems, in one the dove, in another the circle, and in the other two, the vesica piscis", but they are not visible in his illustration. Murray's Handbook for travellers […] (1865) mentions the location of a Norman font in this church: "In the E arch of the S tower", and refers to the illustration by Paley. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a Norman font. Cox (1912) lists this as one of a group of Cornish fonts made from Dorsetshire Purbeck limestone [NB: though later in the same source identifies it as "Tintagel Greenstone"]. Cox (ibid.) writes: "The most interesting detail of the interior is the fine late Norm[an] font of Purbeck marble, broken up and discarded in 1793. The fragments were, however, replaced in 1840. The font, 33 in. square, and 39 in. high, has the 4 angles round the bowl at the top of the font filled with 3 three-leaved ornaments in slight relief and a circle or ring in fourth angle. N. side of bowl is carved .with a round-headed arcade, and the other sides have much-worn patterns; it stands on a central and four subsidiary shafts." Listed in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as a good specimen from a group of fonts "charateristic of the Norman period in architecture [...] consisting of a rectangular bowl upon a large central shaft, with four slender supporting shafts at the angles". Noted in Pevsner: "Font. Of Purbeck marble, c.1200, badly preserved." Illustrated in A Snap in Time [www.caerkief.co.uk/Churches/Germans.html] [accessed 16 November 2009]. Noted in Leach (1975) as a font made of Purbeck marble: "bowl with panels on one face, foliage decoration on two and half circles surmounted by reversed half circles on the fourth; part of the base and the subsiduary shafts are modern" [source given: Pevsner, Cornwall, 1951].
Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to David Ross, of Britain Express Ltd., for his photograph of this font
COORDINATES
UTM: 30U 406964 5583591
Latitude & Longitude (Decimal): 50.397, -4.309
Latitude & Longitude (DMS): 50° 23′ 49.2″ N, 4° 18′ 32.4″ W
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material: stone, mixed stones [originally of limestone (Dorsetshire Purbeck)? / Tintagel greenstone?]
Font Shape: square, mounted
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: square
Basin Depth: 25 cm
Font Height (with Plinth): 105 cm** / 97.5 cm***
Trapezoidal Basin: 82.5 x 82.5 cm* / cm***
Notes on Measurements: *Paley's measurement is "diameter across the top=2 ft. 9 in. -- **Paley's measurement is for height "including the basement" -- Paley (1844: unpaged)
*** [in inches in Cox (1912)]
LID INFORMATION
Date: modern
Material: wood, oak?
Apparatus: no
Notes: round and flat with a Latin-cross finial/handle; modern
REFERENCES
- Cox, John Charles, Cornwall, London: George Allen & Company, 1912, p. 12, 13, 114
- Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907, p. 189, 193
- Leach, Rosemary, A Investigation into the use of Purbeck Marble in Medieval England, Hartlepool: E.W. Harrisons & Sons, 1975, p. 73
- Murray, John, A handbook for travellers in Devon and Cornwall, London: John Murray, 1865, p. 234
- Paley, Frederick Apthorp, Illustrations of Baptismal Fonts, London, UK: John van Voorst, 1844, p. 15 et al.
- Pevsner, Nikolaus, Cornwall, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970, p. 176
- Tyrrell-Green, E., Baptismal Fonts Classified and Illustrated, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge: The Macmillan Co., 1928, p. 27, 83