St. John Lee nr. Hexham No. 1

INFORMATION

FontID: 03912JOH
Church/Chapel: Church of St. John of Beverley
Church Patron Saints: St. John of Beverley [no dedication in Crowford's]
Country Name: England
Location: Northumberland, North East
Directions to Site: Located near Hexham, just S of Hadrian's Wall
Font Location in Church: Inside the church?
Century and Period: 3th - 5th century, Roman [altered]
Cognate Fonts: Chollerton and Haydon Bridge, very near by, also in Northumberland, have converted Roman altars as well
Cox & Harvey (1907) mention an object is believed to be a hollowed out Roman altar for use as font. Bond (1908) mentions three examples of "Roman altars [...] converted into fonts": this one, the font at Haydon Bridge and another one at Chollerton, all in the same area of Northumberland [Chollerton is north of Hadrian's Wall; the other two are south of it]. Listed in Stocker (1997: 25) as one of a group of "Roman altars incorporated into fonts". [NB: the font at Hexham is said to be also a Roman stone converted into a baptismal font -- listed under Hexham in this Index]

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone, unknown
Font Shape: square (mounted)
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: square

REFERENCES

Bond, Francis, Fonts and Font Covers, London: Waterstone, 1985 c1908
Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907
Stocker, D.A., "Fons et origo: The Symbolic Death and Resurrection of English Font Stones", I (1997b), Church Archaeology, 1997, pp. 17-25; r["References"]