South Acre / Acra / Southacre

Blomefield (1807) writes: "This village, as well as Castle-acre and West-acre, in the Book of Domesday, are wrote singly Acra, but is now called South-acre [...] The church of Southacre is dedicated to St. George; it has a nave, a north isle, and a chancel, with a tower at the end of the nave, all built of flint stones, and boulder, and covered with lead; the nave is about 44 feet in length, and with the north isle about 30 in breadth, has a good roof of oak covered with lead: at the west end stands a large Gothick stone font, with a cover of oak raised and carved; round this cover is this inscription cut in the wood: 'Orate pro animabus Magistri Ricardi Zotts, et Domini Zals tribi Baker Rectoris huius Ecclesie quie hoc opus fieri fecerunt'." In the introduction to his list of recorded rectors of this parish, Blomefield (ibid.) notes: "About this time Norwich Domesday Book was wrote, wherein it is said that the rector had then an house and 30 acres of glebe, and Sir Roger Harsike was patron", but the first recorded rector is named "Reginald de Arsick [...] in the 20th of Edward I." [i.e., 12920. Described in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Norman period, with an inscription on its cover [cf. Inscription area]. Described and illustrated in Bond (1908) as a baptismal font of the Norman period/style; it has a basin resembling an advanced type of the scalloped capital [i.e., looking more like a font basin in its own right, than a modified capital]; it is a square basin with the lower side narrowing so that the scallops of the sides meet with the curves of the five-shaft pedestal (a broad centre column and four outer colonnettes); the whole is raised on a low square plinth. The tall font cover is described in Bond (ibid.) as a fine example of the Gothic rim-buffet type: the lower volume sits directly on the upper rim of the font basin and it is totally open on three sides; the upper volume is taller and has tracery patterns on the lower sides, while the upper ones are narrow panels separated with thin buttresses; pelican finial; Bond (ibid.) suggests that they were left blank to add painted figures on them later. A Latin inscription on the font [cf. supra] informs of those who had it made, "Master Richard Gotts and Master Geoffrey Baker, Rector" (ibid.). Both font and cover are illustrated in Cautley (1949) who describes the cover as "a very interesting little one" [compared to the ones at Salle, etc.] and dates it to the 15th century. Both font and cover are noted in Pevsner & Wilson (1999), who remark on the restoration of the cover: "Restoration in 1966 by J. L. Royal amounted almost to a replacement.. Paint on the upper parts conserved by Pauline Plummer." Font and cover are illustrated in Knott (2007). [NB: in Bond (1908) and Cautley (1949) the font was against one of the pillars of the arcade of the nave; the font is now [2009] at the west end of the nave, in the centre of the aisle]