St. Martin-by-Looe / Saint Martin by Looe / St. Martin-juxta-Looe

INFORMATION

FontID: 01472MAR
Church/Chapel: Parish Church of St. Martin
Church Patron Saints: St. Martin of Tours & St. Keyne
Church Location: B3253 St Martin's Rd, Looe PL13 1FA, United Kingdom -- Tel.: +44 1503 263070
Country Name: England
Location: Cornwall, South West
Directions to Site: Located on the B3253, near Looe (to the NE), about 30 km W of Plymouth
Font Location in Church: Inside the church
Century and Period: 12th - 13th century / 14th - 15th century [composite font?], Medieval / composite
Workshop/Group/Artisan: Cornish font
Cognate Fonts: Lanteglos, Lansallos and St Cleer, all in Cornwall
Noted in Lysons (1806-1833) as one of a group of Cornish fonts of similar shape as the original fonts of Bodmin, Roche, etc., “but evidently of a much later date”. Noted in Murray's Handbook for travellers […] (1865): "The font is curious, of Norm[an] character." Described in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a square font supported on five shafts of the Late Norman or Transitional, like those at Lanteglos, Lansallos and St Cleer. Cox (1912) writes: "Curiously carved Norm[an] font, 28 in. square and 10 in. deep, stands 30 in. high; part of base has clearly belonged to another font, said to have been brought from West Looe." Pevsner (1970) writes: "Font. Norman, with groups of four-petalled flowers (unusual) and a 'tree of life' on one side; considered by Henderson C15 imitation Norman." Noted and illustrated in A Snap in Time [http://www.caerkief.co.uk/Churches/MartinbyL.html] [accessed 18 November 2009]. The font, as it now [2009] stands, is made up of a square basin and a square base of several volumes, and not the five columns reported by Cox & Harvey (1907).

COORDINATES

Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal: 50.369417, -4.448167
Church Latitude & Longitude DMS: 50° 22′ 9.9″ N, 4° 26′ 53.4″ W
UTM: 30U 397014 5580708

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone, type unknown
Font Shape: square (mounted)
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: square
Basin Depth: 25 cm*
Font Height (less Plinth): 75 cm*
Trapezoidal Basin: 70 x 70 cm*
Notes on Measurements: * [in inches in Cox (1912)]

REFERENCES

Cox, John Charles, Cornwall, London: George Allen & Company, 1912
Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907
Lysons, Daniel, Magna Britannia, being a concise topographical account of the several counties of Great Britain, London: Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1806-1822
Murray, John, A handbook for travellers in Devon and Cornwall, London: John Murray, 1865
Pevsner, Nikolaus, Cornwall, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970