New Shoreham / Shoreham / Shoreham-by-Sea / Soreham / Soresham

Standing permission

Results: 18 records

Click to view images and/or subjects

design element - architectural - arcade - blind - round arches - columns with spiral patterns ornamentation - columns with capitals and bases

Scene Description: on the east side

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

design element - motifs - floral or foliage

Scene Description: in the spandrels of the semi-circles

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

design element - motifs - floral or foliage - 4

Scene Description: each corner space/spandrel of the upper basin surface has a vegetal motif

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

design element - motifs - floral or foliage - 4

Scene Description: Forms the capitals of the outer supporting columns.

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

design element - motifs - floral or foliage - inscribed

Scene Description: on the west side

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

design element - motifs - moulding

Scene Description: around the columns of the base; this part appears to be original

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

symbol - cross - Greek - Maltese - 4 - in a circle - linked circles

Scene Description: on the south side

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

symbol - sun - multi-rayed - in a triangle - 9

Scene Description: on the north side

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of base - detail

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of church exterior - southeast view

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 August 2009 by Bob Embleton [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2523941] [accessed 23 October 2012]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0

view of font

Scene Description: showing the east and south sides. Notice the old round plinth, later replaced by a square one

Image Source: digital image of an engraving by Orlando Jewitt in Paley (1844)

Copyright Instructions: PD

view of font

Scene Description: showing the north and south sides. Notice the damage on the upper rim between the secong and third circled cross, later repaired. The square plinth had already replaced the round one visible in Paley's drawing of ca. 1844

Image Source: digital image of a B&W photograph in Tyrrell-Green (1928: fig. 45)

Copyright Instructions: PD

view of font - east side

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of font - north side

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of font - south side

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of font - west side

Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of font and cover

Scene Description: showing the north and east sides

Image Source: photograph by Paul Zwierzanski [www.yeoldesussexpages.co.uk]

Copyright Instructions: Image and permision received (e-mail Nov. 4, 2003)

view of font in context

Scene Description: showing the west side

Image Source: digital photograph taken 20 May 2003 by John Salmon [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1648698] [accessed 23 October 2012]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0

INFORMATION

FontID: 03430SHO

Church/Chapel: Parish Church of St. Mary de Haura ["St Mary of the Harbour"]

Church Patron Saints: St. Mary the Virgin

Church Location: Church St, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex BN43 5DQ, UK

Country Name: England

Location: West Sussex, South East

Directions to Site: Located in Shoreham-by-Sea, just off the A27, between Brighton and Worthing, 8-10 km W of Brighton

Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Chichester

Historical Region: Hundred of Fishersgate -- Rape of Bramber -- Sussex

Font Location in Church: Inside the church, at the W end of the chancel [formerly in the N transept]

Date: 1145-1190?

Century and Period: 12th century [re-tooled?], Late Norman? / Transitional? [altered]

Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Paul Zwierzanski, of www.yeoldesussexpages.co.uk, and to Janice Tostevin, for their photographs of this font.

Font Notes: Click to view font notes

There are two entries for Shoreham [variant spellings] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/TQ2105/shoreham/[ [accessed 9 March 2023], one of which reports a church in it. Described and illustrated (engraving by Orlando Jewitt) in Paley (1844): square mounted font of the Norman period with a central broad base and four detached corner shafts. Paley (ibid.) shows a square basin with a round well; the basin sides "are sculptured in arcades, with twisted shafts, crosses within circles, zigzags, foliage, &c, in very low relief, and rudely executed, as is also the foliage of the capitals." Paley (ibid.) also informs that the font had "been very lately restored under the direction of Mr. Ferrey, and placed on a square plinth at the west end of the chancel; formerly it stood in the north transept on a circular step". Described in Cox & Harvey (1907) as one of the most interesting of the twenty-nine Norman fonts in this county that have square bowls. In Walker (1908). Harrison (1920) writes: "The font (sq[uare] Nor[man]), of Sussex marble, is a splendid specimen." Described and illustrated in Tyrrell-Green (1928). In Drummond-Roberts (1935). The Victoria County History (Sussex, vol. 6, pt. 1, 1980) notes: "The church of St. Mary De Haura, [...] New Shoreham, had that name c. 1096. [...] The surviving building is the eastern end of a large cruciform church [...that] probably began in the late 11th century at the eastern end. [...] The font is of the late 12th century, and incised marks of perhaps the same period on the columns of the arcades are thought to be masons' marks, Templars' crosses, and crusaders' crosses." Described in Whiteman (1994) as a fine Norman font made of Sussex marble. There are four different motifs on the sides: on the East side: blind arcade of seven round arches on torsade columns with capitals and bases (one of the columns appears re-carved); South side: four Maltese crosses inscribed in circles that are linked to each other; West side: two large semi-circles inscribing what appears to be floral motifs, with floral or foliage motifs in the spandrels; North side: nine triangles pointing up and down alternately inscribing rayed-sun like motifs; the spandrels of the upper surface of the basin are decorated with floral or foliage motifs, in the tradition of some Tournai fonts. The wooden cover is probably 19th-century, round, flat and with metal decorations; the four outer supports of the base, and the second level of the lower base were probably replaced when the font was restored in the 19th century. A later restoration must have taken place after 1928, as there is damage that appears on the south side of the basin, between the second and third crosses, on Tyrrell-Green's photograph. Described and illustrated in the CRSBI (2008), which identifies the stone of the basin as "Purbeck marble (ie: smaller snails than Sussex marble)", but that of the five colonnettes of the base "which appear to have been renewed in Sussex (rather than Purbeck) marble." The English Heritage, National Monuments Record entry for this church [www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=398767#aRt] [accessed 23 October 2012] dates the font to ca. 1180.

COORDINATES

Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal: 50.83267, -0.274626

Church Latitude & Longitude DMS: 50° 49′ 57.61″ N, 0° 16′ 28.66″ W

UTM: 30U 691911 5634757

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone, marble (Sussex / Purbeck marble)

Font Shape: square (mounted)

Basin Interior Shape: round

Basin Exterior Shape: square

Drainage Notes: no lining

Rim Thickness: 8 cm*

Diameter (inside rim): 68.75 cm*

Basin Depth: 25 cm*

Basin Total Height: 20.5 cm**

Font Height (less Plinth): 66.25 cm* / 80 cm**

Font Height (with Plinth): 96 cm**

Trapezoidal Basin: 85 x 85 cm*

Notes on Measurements: * Paley (1844: unpaged) / ** CRSBI (2008)

LID INFORMATION

Date: modern

Material: wood,

Apparatus: no

Notes: [cf. FontNotes]

REFERENCES

Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. Accessed: 2012-10-23 00:00:00. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.

Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland. Accessed: 2012-10-23 00:00:00. URL: http://www.crsbi.ac.uk.

Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907

Drummond-Roberts, Maud F., Some Sussex fonts, photographed and described, Brighton: Southern Publishing Co., 1935

Harrison, Frederick, Notes on Sussex churches, Hove: Combridges, 1920

Paley, Frederick Apthorp, Illustrations of Baptismal Fonts, London, UK: John van Voorst, 1844

Tyrrell-Green, E., Baptismal Fonts Classified and Illustrated, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge: The Macmillan Co., 1928

Walker, A.K., An introduction to the study of English fonts, with details of those in Sussex, 1908

Whiteman, Ken, Ancient Churches of Suffolk, Seaford, East Sussex: S.B. Publications, 1998