Sherburn

Sheahan & Whellan (1857) report ''an ancient circular font'' in this ''probably early Norman'' church. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Norman period. In Hobson (1924) as "a very fine Norm[an] font." Tyrrell-Green (1928) describes it as a Norman font with an ornamentation similar to the one on the font at Enborne, in Berkshire [cf. Index entry for the latter]; also with a rope moulding on it. Pevsner & Neave (1995) note two fonts: one is ''C12, drum-shaped with arcading, each bay filled by a kind of stalk with a leaf'' [the other font noted is ''ornate early C20'' and therefore not included in this Index]. The entry for this church in Historic England [Listing NGR: SE9595077433] informs: "Church. Lower stage of tower, nave and chancel arch early C12; tower arch and north arcade late C12 - early C13; south arcade, porch and upper stage of tower rebuilt during restoration of 1909-12 [...] Square Norman font, cable- moulded, and with arcading enclosing palm trees. Also C20 octagonal font with tall, richly-carved cover suspended from belfry floor." The entry for this church in the CRSBI [https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=4777] [accessed 17 February 2025] informs: "This is a cylindrical font with ten bays of arcading carved in two levels of relief. One bay is blank; the remaining nine bays enclose slender formalised trees. The blank bay faces approximately E; it is numbered 1, and then L to R round the cylinder. The columns of the arcade are double, that is, they continue the flat strips of the arches converging from either side, but the columns of narrow bay 2 are single. Also to save space, the narrow tree carved in bay 2 has no central leaf, but two on either side of the centre. The imposts or capitals of the arcade are rectangular, and bases may be chamfered. The trees in the bays are given an architectural form like the arcade: they are columns with bases and imposts. The foliage in the heads of the trees varies, but the design is always symmetrical. They may be trefoil (bays 3, 8, 9) or palmate (bays 4, 6, 10), while the foliage in bays 5 and 7 is unusual. Bay 5 has a circle at the top of the trunk, and no ‘capital’; inside the circle is seen the tip of the central stem or pillar flanked by a pair of ‘leaves’. The design in bay 7 is perhaps derived from a more elaborate foliage design comparable to that of the 1st order of the doorway at Fishlake: two stems curve round and meet at a binding ring, then turn down into the loop; there is a small leaf below the ring inside the heart-shaped loop. The cable pattern at the top is carved on the vertical side, and it extends across the horizontal rim to the rebate for the lead [...] Font: the lack of setting-out skills is common on the fonts in the Riding with grid patterns. The simplified treatment of the foliage is comparable to the patterns on the capitals of the S side of the chancel arch."