Saltash No. 1 / Essa

Noted in 'On the ancient fonts of Cornwall' (1851) as a "sadly mutilated" font of ca. 1085. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) and in Cox (1912) as a baptismal font of the Decorated period, although Cox (ibid.) appears to contradict himself later in the same source: "Font, like a big stoup with 4 projecting ribs, is said to have originally stood in ancient chapel of Wadgworthy in this parish, and was placed here in 1870. It is, however, highly improbable that the chapel had baptismal rights, and we believe it to have been a domestic vessel." Pevsner (1970) writes: "Font. Probably Norman, of an unsusual vague shape, with corner ribs and a centre rib on each side; possibly of domestic origin." The town's website [http://www.saltashcornwall.co.uk/page4628.html] [accessed 23 November 2009] states that the font used to be a domestic mortar. [NB: the building is said to date from ca. 1120]. [cf. Indes entry for Saltash No. 2 for a medieval (?) stoup in the same church]