Huyton No. 1 / Hitune

There is an entry for Huyton [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SJ4491/huyton/] [accessed 25 June 2014], but it makes no mention of church or cleric in it. A font is noted and illustrated in Smith (1874), who reports the discovery of "the bowl or basin of a font, clearly of much older character than any portions of the present structure, the earliest of which seem to belong to the 15th century [...] This font-bowl, which has unquestionably possessed a pedestal [...] has been carved from a single block of the native (Keuper) red sandstone"; Smith )ibid.) further notes "hollows on each side" of the upper rim of the basin for anchoring the hardware a font cover. "The font was found to possess its lining of lead, bearing traces of long-continued use, still whole and only rather jagged at the rim. This metal receptacle has a depth of 12 and a diameter of 20 inches." Smith (ibid.) proceeds with a detailed description of the low-relief carving [cf. infra] and states: "In regard to date, we hold both the Grappenhall and the Huyton font to be of as early a character as any we remeber to have seen of heard of in this country, and incline to attribute them to the 8th or 9th century, when Roman sculpture still remained strewed over the land; for the style of ornament seems to decide the point, and the mode of execution confirms the appropriation. The six-petalled flowers are only so far Saxon or Norman, copied from Roman-British altars and monumental stones; in later mediaeval times only recognised Christian emblems would have been used for so sacred a purpose as this, and in place of these flowers, cinquefoils or trefoils would have been substituted. The arcades are likewise derived from Roman archwork of the severest style, whilst the saints, unlike those of later sculpture, are devoid of any symbols. The most expressive term for this copied and debased style is, perhaps, 'degraded Roman'." Smith (ibid.) proceeds then to point out the similarities and differences of the fonts at Grappenhall and Huyton. Ellis (1902) notes the font with much of the content from Smith [cf. supra], whom he quotes extensively. Cox & Harvey (1907) list a Norman font, one of two fonts in this church [cf. Index entry for Huyton No. 2 for the second one]. The Victoria County History (Lancaster, vol. 3, 1907) has: "at the east end of the south aisle is a second font, found under the west tower in 1873. It belongs to the first half of the 12th century, and has a round bowl ornamented with eleven arched panels, in each of which is a human head, and above a row of five-pointed stars [...] It is set on a modern pedestal." Noted in Pevsner (1969), also as one of two: "One is Early Norman [...] The Norman one is tub-shaped and has extremely primitive heads in arcading, and a frieze of rosettes above." Ditto in Pollard & Pevsner (2006). A recent [1998] illustration of this font appears in the Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council, [http://history.knowsley.gov.uk] [Ref. No. WFN145 -- Date of photo: 1998]