Longbridge Deverill / Longbridge Deverel

A letter to the editor of The Gentleman's Magazine (issue of Oct. 15, 1815: p. 393) on the Deverill churches includes a mention of the church at Longbridge Deverill and its "curious Saxon font". Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Norman period. Buck (1951) puts it in a Wiltshire group of late-Norman fonts dating from ca. 1150-1200, "similar to that at Stockton, but the faces of the scallops are carved with various designs". Described and illustrated in Hutton (1957) as a restored Norman font; the basin appears plain except for a row of scallop motif inscribed with a variety of symbols (crosses, palmettes, etc.) below a moulding at the lower edge of the basin; the base appears cylindrical and plain, An unremarkable wooden cover of much later date [Jacobean?] tops the font. Noted in Pevsner & Cherry (1975): "Font. Circular, Norman, decorated with enriched scallops on the underside." [NB: a much later font, designed by Sir Alfred Gilbert, the sculptor of the famous Eros statue in Piccadilly Circus" is reported in the Bath Chapel in this locality -- font not listed in this Index on account of its late date 19th-20th century [source: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/avenue/pd49/places/deverill/deverill.htm]