Norwich No. 5 / Norwic

There are ten entries for Norwich [variant spellings] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/TG2308/norwich/] [accessed 27 September 2020]; they report "22.7 churches. 2.57 church lands" and "1 church" in them. A font here is noted in Paley (1844), Fryer (1933), Cautley (1949) and Stone (1955). The canopy over the font is noted by the architect G.E. Street in a letter to the Guardian reproduced in The Architect (issue of 30 August 1873: 101). Nichols (1994) describes the conflicting information which has circulated about this font: she reports Blomefield description of ca. 1740 as "a heavy looking thing painted and in good repair". Apparently whatever sculptural ornamentation there had been was obliterated. Nichols (Ibid.) also reports Pevsner's description of the damage to the ornamentation as having been "hacked off" and that the painting of the damaged surfaces was done ca. 1564, at the time when the walls of the church were painted. Nichols gives R.N. Flood as the person responsible for the restoration of the font in 1926 and as the major source of information for Fryer's article of 1934, and cites the source for the original donation of 1463 in payment for a new font. Noted in Pevsner & Wilson (1997): "Shafted stem, the reliefs of the Saints round the stem hacked off and the paintings [!] of the Seven Sacraments on the bowl defaced. It was given by John Cawston in 1463. -- Font canopy. A canopy, not a cover, cf. Trunch and also Durham Cathedral. Four square supports with canopied niches and crockets rise to an octagonal cornice with brattishing, on which are attached further dropped pinnacles. Above this all is Victorian: big octagonal superstructure with crocketed cap. A pelican on top." Jenkins (1999) mentions the font as "a simple Seven-Sacrament work, much battered"; he also describes the canopy over the font, which "takes the form of four Perpendicular supports rising to angels flanking (empty) niches." Cautley (1949) describes the canopy as "very much handicapped by its present top, which is a very poor restoration", and compares it to the one at Trunch, "The great glory of Norfolk" [cf. Index entry for Trunch]. The font-cover is noted in Howard & Crossley (1919). The entry for this church in Historic Churches [Listing NGR: TG2293208426] reports the church as 15th-century without any reference to an earlier building; it does not mention the font but it does the cover: "Timber font canopy on four square supports with crocketed super-structure." The canopy over the font is studied in Gillette & Stewart's The Baptismal Font Canopy of St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich (Brill, 2023).