Lower Peover / Nether Peover

Described in Hutton (1957) as a baptismal font of the Decorated period (dated 1322) with a Jacobean cover. Noted in Pevsner (1971): "Font. A large round piece with mouldings at top and bottom and a simple band as its only decoration, and a Jacobean font cover." Richards (1973) writes: "The ancient font with bull-nose mouldings is possibly early fourteenth century. The style, however, is difficult to date, and although it looks quite early, at the same time its appearance may be deceptive. The cover in considerably later, being Jacobean." Listed in Stocker (1997) as one of a group of "early font bowls set within bases of successors". [NB: Norton Priory was a monastery of Augustinian canons founded ca. 1133 in Runcorn; it was moved to Norton a year later]. Described and ilustrated in The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland [www.crsbi.ac.uk/ed/ch/lowpe/] as "a cylindrical font of uncertain date, reputedly brought here from Norton Priory in 1322. [...] The font is a puzzle. The mouldings are not convincing as Romanesque work, yet the standard of precision and the simplicity of form make a later date unsatisfactory."