Wellow nr. Midsomer Norton

No individual entry found for this Wellow in the Domesday survey. Paley (1844) reports a baptismal bowl with a "foliated bowl" here. The Handbook for travellers… (1869) reports an Early English font worth of notice in this church. Lewis (1876) notes "the Elizabethan font cover" and mentions the font as being covered in a flower arrangement. Illustrated in Rickman & Parker (1881), the woodcut by Orlando Jewitt: Early English baptismal font dated to ca. 1270; the basin appears polylobed, with eight lobes both inside and out, with vertical sides and totally plain; the underbowl is formed by the round chamfer corresponding to each of the lobes, graded and connecting them to the eight outer colonnettes of the base; the base is a large central cylindrical shaft with eight attached colonnettes; the lower base appears octagonal and plain. The plinth appears hexagonal of irregular sides. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) with a reference to Rickman's illustration of a "c. 1230" font [NB: in their earlier entry (ibid.: 165) C&H describe this font as Norman; the reference to Rickman includes an erroneus date: Rickman's illustration is clearly marked "c. 1270" -- cf. Image area]. Wade & Wade (1929) report: "E[arly] E[nglish] font attached to one of the pillars and furnished with a book rest." Pevsner (1958) mentions it in the conntext of his entry for Beckington, as well as in its own entry: "Eight-lobed bowl on fat circular foot with eight attached shafts. Is if c. 1300?" . Details of the font and cover are given in the Parish web site [http://www.wellowparish.info/Church/St.%20Julian's%20Church.htm] [accessed 8 April 2008]: "In the north aisle at its west end is the old font. The font itself, much restored, comes from about 1250. The font is an early English design on a Norman base, an eight loded bowl on a circular foot.The Jacobean font cover was cleaned in 1950 and has been preserved above the font; it is a rare example of Laudian work dating from 1623" [NB: the cover referred to here is not the modern one shown in the Wilkes' photograph]. The Bath WEB site cites Jeremy Harte's The Holly Wells of Somerset about the old custom of filling the baptismal font with the water of the nearby St Julian's Well [cf. Index entry for the font at Charlcombe for a similar custom].