Canterbury No. 6

A font of the Early English period, ca. 1250, was illustrated in Rickman & Parker (1881) [with a woodcut by Orlando Jewitt]: a shallow octagonal basin of plain vertical sides was raised on a central column and [seven? / eight?] surrounding colonnettes, all round. Described in Cox (1905): "The most noteworthy feature of this church is the font at the east end of the nave, which is of unique arrangement. The bowl, which is a shallow octagon, rests on seven slender shafts, the flat capitals of which project some little way beyond the bowl that they support. It is of thirteenth-century date, and has a plain domed cover of the seventeenth century." Cox & Harvey (1907) describe this font as "unique; eight tall detached shafts, with well-moulded capitals and bases, in addition to a larger central shaft, hold up a perfectly plain shallow octagon bowl; the smaller shafts stand out beyond the bowl, which is only supported by half of the capitals". Described in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as a baptismal font of the Early English period. [NB: the whole church was destroyed during the Second World War bombings and only the tower was restored. [cf. the Kent Messenger Group Newspapers WEB page for more info.] According to this source Christopher Marlowe was baptised here.