Marr / Marle / Marra

INFORMATION

Font ID: 02021MAR
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Century and Period/Style: 14th - 15th century, Decorated? / Perpendicular?
Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. Helen
Font Location in Church: Inside the church
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Helena
Church Address: Marr, Doncaster DN5 7AU , UK -- Tel.: 01709 898538
Site Location: South Yorkshire, Yorkshire and the Humber, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located on the A635, just E of Thurnscoe, 7 km W of Doncaster
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Sheffield
Historical Region: Hundred of Strafforth -- formerly WRYrks
Font Notes:
There are three entries for Marr [variant spellings] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SE5105/marr/] [accessed 15 November 2018], none of which mentions cleric or church in it. Glynne's 18 January 1860 visit to this church (in Butler, 2007) reports: "The font is odd: the bowl octagonal, bulging onwards, on a square stem, having shafts at the angles, set in hollow and wedge-like blocks." Noted in The National Gazetteer of 1868: "The interior of the church contains an ancient font". Armitage (1905) mentions this font as an example of multiple-support fonts of the Decorated period. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Decorated Period. In Morris (1932): "Interesting font, perhaps Perp[endicular]." Mee (1941) notes: "the font may be 15th century." Pevsner (1986 c1967) writes: "Font. Square plinth, broaches to connect with an octagonal base. Cruciform foot with four angle-shafts. Probably early C14." Ditto Harman & Pevsner (2017).

COORDINATES

UTM: 30U 617684 5934067
Latitude & Longitude (Decimal): 53.5423, -1.224
Latitude & Longitude (DMS): 53° 32′ 32.28″ N, 1° 13′ 26.4″ W

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone, type unknown
Font Shape: octagonal, mounted
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: octagonal

REFERENCES

  • The National Gazetteer: a Topographical Dictionary of the British Isles, London: Virtue & Co., 1868, [wwwgenuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/WRY/Marr/Marr68.htm]
  • Armitage, Ella S., A key to English antiquities with special reference to the Sheffield and Rotherham disctrict, London: J.M. Dent & Co., 1905, p. 175, 260
  • Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907, p. 231
  • Glynne, Stephen Richard, The Yorkshire notes of Sir Stephen Glynne (1825-1874), Woodbridge: The Boydell Press; Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 2007, p. 286
  • Harman, Ruth, Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South, New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2017, p. 399
  • Mee, Arthur, The King's England, Yorkshire, West Riding, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1941, p. 253
  • Morris, Joseph Ernest, The West Riding of Yorkshire, London: Methuen & Co., 1932, p. 351
  • Pevsner, Nikolaus, Yorkshire: the West Riding, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986 c1967, p. 361