Chickney / Cicchenai

The Ecclesiologist (issue of February 1860) reproduces "the substance of a paper by the Revd. J. H. Sperling, Rector of Wicken Bonant, read at the Autumn Meeting of the Essex Archaeological Society, held at Saffron Walden, October, 1859" in which the Rector notes the "very elegant font of this period ['Middle Point', i.e., Decorated] at Chickney". Noted with an illustration in the Royal Commission of Historical Monuments (Essex, 1916-1923) as a richly carved font of the 15th century: "octagonal bowl, of clunch, carved with four septfoil ogee canopies, having crockets and finials; each canopy including two faces of bowl; soffits carved with half-angels; moulded and enriched cornice, and, in spandrels, raised shields, charged with arms--(a) six voided lozenges for Braybrook; (b) a fesse between two cheverons; (c) a bend with a ring in the foot; square stop-chamfered centra; stem and four subsidiary buttressed shafts at alternate angles; moulded base with carved foliage at alternate angles, probably early 15th-century." Described in Hutton (1957) as "a good early 15C font." Noted in Pevsner (1976): "Font. C14 with buttressed stem and bowl with deep crocketed ogee arches with shields in the spandrels.-- Font cover. C16, pyramidal, with embattled foot, and crockets, but certain leaf motifs which look Elizabethan." Bettley & Pevsner (2007), however, change the earlier dates to: the font, C14; the cover, 1858. [NB: the fabric of the church goes back to Anglo-Saxon times, but we have no information on the original font]