Stoke Abbott / Abbot's Stoke / Stoke Abbas / Stoke Abbot
Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2004
Standing permission
Results: 24 records
view of font - east side
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2004
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
animal - fabulous animal or monster - dragon
Scene Description: the arches of the arcade end in dragon heads serving as capitals
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2008
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of basin - interior
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2008
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
human figure - male - head - 8
Scene Description: some bearded, some not
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2008
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
design element - architectural - arcade - round arches - decorated arches
Scene Description: the face of the arch has a pattern of little X motifs, and the capitals are dragon (?) heads
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2008
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
symbol - sun, star or flower
Scene Description: a motif in each of the spandrels of the arcade
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2004
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
design element - motifs - moulding
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2004
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
design element - motifs - hexagon - beaded-tape
Scene Description: hexagons forming a pattern, some linked, all with sun- or flower-like motifs inside
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2004
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
design element - motifs - floral
Scene Description: in each of the hexagons of the lower basin register
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2004
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of church exterior - south view
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2004
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of church exterior - southeast view
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2004
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of church interior - looking east
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2004
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of font and cover in context
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2004
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of basin - detail - animal?
Scene Description: one of the fabulous animal or monster heads that serve as capitals in the arcade
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2008
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of basin - detail - head, face or mask8
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2008
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of basin - detail - head, face or mask7
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2008
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of basin - detail - head, face or mask6
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2008
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of basin - detail - head, face or mask5
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2008
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of basin - detail - head, face or mask4
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2008
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of basin - detail - head, face or mask3
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2008
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of basin - detail - head, face or mask2
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2008
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of basin - detail - head, face or mask1
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2008
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of basin - detail
Scene Description: showing restoration/repair
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2008
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of font - plan, elevation, section and sketch
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Gerald Duke, 2004
Image Source: digital photograph in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
INFORMATION
Font ID: 02186STO
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Century and Period/Style: 11th - 12th century / 15th - 16th century, Norman
Cognate Fonts: Similar framed-head motifs on the Spanish fonts of Aoiz (Navarra) and the cathedral of Calahorra (Logroño province, La Rioja)
Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin
Font Location in Church: Inside the church, in the W end, beneath the tower
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Mary the Virgin
Church Address: Stoke Abbot, Beaminster DT8 3JT, UK -- +44 308 862320 / +44 308 862150
Site Location: Dorset, South West, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located off the B3162, 3-4 km W of Beaminster, 8-10 km N of Bridport
Historical Region: Hundred of Beaminster
Additional Comments: damaged font / repaired font [cf. Images area]
Font Notes:
Click to view
There is an entry for Stoke [Abbott] [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/ST4500/stoke-abbott/] [accessed 2 August 2019] but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. A font here is described in the 3rd ed. of Hutchins (1973 c1861-1874): "The font is a remarkably handsome Norman structure, of circular form, and richly ornamented with the shallow superficial carving characteristic of the period." Noted as "a rich Norman font" in the Handbook for travellers… (1869). Long (1923) notes: "fine tub-shaped font with shallow carving" and dates it to the Norman period. In Mee (1939) and in the RCHM (1952). Newman & Pevsner (1972) write: "An exceptionally beautiful Norman piece, not arbitrary and confused as they so often are, but rationally organized. Bowl and stem in one. Heads under arches, and hexagons with big leaves inside below." The Dorset Historic Churches Trust [http://dorsethistoricchurchestrust.co.uk/stoke_abbott.htm] illustrates the font and notes: "The very important and exceptionally beautiful Norman font features eight heads; four of women and four of men. They may represent Noah and his three sons with their wives." Described and illustrated in Drake's book on Romanesque fonts (2002): "A very unsusual monolithic, slightly flaring, cylinder font. At the top is a plain section formed of two roll-mouldings and the integral plinth is formed of multiple mouldings, also plain. Between the two the ornament is unusual for being in two distinct planes. The wider part at the top gives the effect of a row of canopies, created by a Lombard frieze of eight arches decorated with tiny quatrefoils; there are leaf motifs in the spandrels, bearded lions' masks for capitals and in each arch is a human face. In the narrower section below is a continuous band of beaded hexagons which are not quite joined at the lateral angles but are connected to those on either side by double horizontal lines; the hexagons are placed beneath the arches and the linking horizontals beneath the capitals. Every hexagon but one contains a twelve-petal rosette and below the horizontal links are seven-leaf fans. In the case of the hexagon without a rosette, the upper outline is missing and the space is filled by the spreading of the beard of the mask above." In the footnote accompanying Drake's text (ibid.) the author mentions the uniqueness of this design, with the only references cited are the Spanish fonts at Colmenares and Calahorra de Boedo [cf. Index entries]. The use of protruding heads on the side of the basin with demi-arch frames on top occurs in two other Spanish fonts, but of a much later date, the Navarrese font of Aoiz and a similar one in the cathedral of Calahorra in La Rioja [*NOT* Calahorra de Boedo] [both catalogued and illustrated in this Index]. The font is described and fully illustrated in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk], who asks some intersting questions about the "various possibilities [that] may explain the eight faces, but what of the eight grotesques?", and suggests one possibility as a reference to the Eight Beatitudes of Christ from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5,3), and/or references to St. Adhelm's translation of the Psalms.
Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Colin S. Drake, to Geral Duke, of www.martinstown.co.uk, and to The Dorset Historic Churches Trust [www.dorsethistoricchurchestrust.co.uk], for their photographs of this font and church.
COORDINATES
UTM: 30U 515756 5627897
Latitude & Longitude (Decimal): 50.8026, -2.7764
Latitude & Longitude (DMS): 50° 48′ 9.36″ N, 2° 46′ 35.04″ W
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material: stone, limestone
Number of Pieces: one
Font Shape: cylindrical, unmounted
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: round
Drainage System: centre hole in basin
Drainage Notes: lead lining
Rim Thickness: 12 cm*
Diameter (inside rim): 56 cm*
Diameter (includes rim): 80 cm*
Basin Depth: 27 cm*
Font Height (less Plinth): 73 cm*
Notes on Measurements: * [all measurements courtesy of Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk]]
LID INFORMATION
Material: wood
Apparatus: no
Notes: flat, with metal decoration ond handle; probably modern
REFERENCES
- Drake, Colin Stuart, The Romanesque Fonts of Northern Europe and Scandinavia, Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2002, p. 13 and pl 14
- Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, Royal Commission on Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, London: H.M. Stationary Office, 1970, vol. 1: 224-226
- Hutchins, John, The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset, Wakefield: E.P. Pub. Ltd., 1973, vol. 2: 148
- Long, E.T., "Dorset church fonts", 44, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, 1923, pp. 62-76; p. 68, 75
- Mee, Arthur, The King's England. Dorset: Thomas Hardy's Country, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1939, p. 239
- Murray, John, A handbook for travellers in Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and Somersetshire, London: John Murray, 1869, p. 209 / [http://books.google.ca/books?id=hYEOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA369&lpg=PA369&dq=hemyock+church+font&source=bl&ots=wV68KRXFhH&sig=_-CnLgSLeYKjq8YBQMsxSQrjbvA&hl=en&ei=1IKRSeTLOojKNO3c_YkM&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result#PPA161,M1] [accessed 10 February 2009]
- Pevsner, Nikolaus, Dorset, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972, p. 19, 399-400