New Shoreham / Shoreham / Shoreham-by-Sea / Soreham / Soresham
Image copyright © Janice Tostevin, 2010
Standing permission
Results: 18 records
view of font - north side
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Janice Tostevin, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of font - west side
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Janice Tostevin, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of font - south side
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Janice Tostevin, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of font - east side
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Janice Tostevin, 2010
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
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Paul Zwierzanski, 2002
Image Source: photograph by Paul Zwierzanski [www.yeoldesussexpages.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Image and permision received (e-mail Nov. 4, 2003)
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
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © [in the public domain]
Image Source: digital image of a B&W photograph in Tyrrell-Green (1928: fig. 45)
Copyright Instructions: PD
view of font
Scene Description: showing the east and south sides. Notice the old round plinth, later replaced by a square one
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © [in the public domain]
Image Source: digital image of an engraving by Orlando Jewitt in Paley (1844)
Copyright Instructions: PD
design element - motifs - floral or foliage - 4
Scene Description: Forms the capitals of the outer supporting columns.
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Janice Tostevin, 2010
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
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Janice Tostevin, 2010
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
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Janice Tostevin, 2010
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
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Janice Tostevin, 2010
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
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Janice Tostevin, 2010
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
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Janice Tostevin, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
design element - architectural - arcade - blind - round arches - columns with spiral patterns ornamentation - columns with capitals and bases
Scene Description: on the east side
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Janice Tostevin, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of church exterior - southeast view
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Bob Embleton, 2009
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 in context
Scene Description: showing the west side
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Salmon, 2003
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
view of base - detail
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Janice Tostevin, 2010
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
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Janice Tostevin, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 6 March 2010 by Janice Tostevin for BSI
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
INFORMATION
Font ID: 03430SHO
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Date: 1145-1190?
Font Century and Period/Style: 12th century [re-tooled?], Late Norman? / Transitional? [altered]
Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. Mary de Haura ["St Mary of the Harbour"]
Font Location in Church: Inside the church, at the W end of the chancel [formerly in the N transept]
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Mary the Virgin
Church Address: Church St, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex BN43 5DQ, UK
Site Location: West Sussex, South East, England, United Kingdom
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
Additional Comments: altered font: restored font -- The name 'New Shoreham' was really the name of a parliamentary borough created in 1295 and abolished in 1885; it was located in the town of Shoreham-by-Sea. As the name for the place it was so called in the 11thC, to distinguish it from the earlier settlement called Shoreham, hence 'Old Shoreham'] -- disappeared font? (the one from the Domesday-time church)
Font Notes:
Click to view
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.
Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Paul Zwierzanski, of www.yeoldesussexpages.co.uk, and to Janice Tostevin, for their photographs of this font.
COORDINATES
UTM: 30U 691911 5634757
Latitude & Longitude (Decimal): 50.83267, -0.274626
Latitude & Longitude (DMS): 50° 49′ 57.61″ N, 0° 16′ 28.66″ W
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material: stone, marble (Sussex / Purbeck marble)
Font Shape: square, mounted
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: square
Drainage System: centre hole in basin
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-. 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. URL: http://www.crsbi.ac.uk.
- Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907, p. 222, 223
- Drummond-Roberts, Maud F., Some Sussex fonts, photographed and described, Brighton: Southern Publishing Co., 1935, p. 78
- Harrison, Frederick, Notes on Sussex churches, Hove: Combridges, 1920, p. 182
- Paley, Frederick Apthorp, Illustrations of Baptismal Fonts, London, UK: John van Voorst, 1844, p. 15 et al.
- Tyrrell-Green, E., Baptismal Fonts Classified and Illustrated, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge: The Macmillan Co., 1928, p. 27, 76 and fig. 45
- Walker, A.K., An introduction to the study of English fonts, with details of those in Sussex, 1908, p. 76
- Whiteman, Ken, Ancient Churches of Suffolk, Seaford, East Sussex: S.B. Publications, 1998, p. 110