Wellow nr. Midsomer Norton
Image copyright © John Wilkes, 2006
Standing permission
Results: 5 records
view of font and cover
Scene Description: the modern cover [cf. Font notes]
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Wilkes, 2006
Image Source: digital photograph by John Wilkes [www.allthecotswolds.com]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of font
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © [in the public domain]
Image Source: digital image of an illustration in Rickman & Parker (1881: 152)
Copyright Instructions: PD
design element - motifs - moulding
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Wilkes, 2006
Image Source: digital photograph by John Wilkes [www.allthecotswolds.com]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of church exterior - tower
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Wilkes, 2006
Image Source: digital photograph by John Wilkes [www.allthecotswolds.com]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of church interior - nave - looking east
Scene Description: note the font and the old dome cover on the left side, between the pews
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Wellow Parish, 2008
Image Source: B&W photograph in http://www.wellowparish.info/Church/St.%20Julian's%20Church.htm [accessed 8 April 2008
Copyright Instructions: PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE -- IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE
INFORMATION
Font ID: 04809WEL
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Date: ca. 1270?
Font Century and Period/Style: 13th century (late?), Early English
Cognate Fonts: Another "foliated" basin at Stafford St. Mary; one "foliated" on the inside only, at Lenton, Notts.
Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. Julian
Font Location in Church: Inside the church, in the W end of the N aisle
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Julian the Hospitaler
Church Notes: present building 14thC re-building of a pre-12thC church
Church Address: Wellow, Bath BA2 8QS, UK
Site Location: Somerset, South West, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located just a few kms ENE of Midsomer Norton
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Bath and Wells
Additional Comments: [wrote to the vicar at Wellow asking for a photo of the old font -- 8 April 2008//mt]
Font Notes:
Click to view
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 <www.bath.ac.uk/lispring> cites Jeremy Harte's The Holy 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].
Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to John Wilkes, of www.allthecotswolds.com, for his photographs of church and font.
COORDINATES
UTM: 30U 543723 5686092
Latitude & Longitude (Decimal): 51.324444, -2.3725
Latitude & Longitude (DMS): 51° 19′ 28″ N, 2° 22′ 21″ W
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material: stone
Font Shape: polylobed, 8 sides, mounted
Basin Interior Shape: polylobed, 8 sides
Basin Exterior Shape: polylobed, 8 sides
LID INFORMATION
Date: 1623?
Material: wood
Apparatus: no
Notes: [cf. FontNotes]
REFERENCES
- Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907, p. 216
- Lewis, Harold, The Chuch Rambler : a series of articles on the churches in the neighbourhood of Bath, London; Bath: Hamilton, Adams and Co.; William Lewis, The Herald Office, 1876, p. 421, 424
- Murray, John, A handbook for travellers in Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and Somersetshire, London: John Murray, 1869, p. 300
- Paley, Frederick Apthorp, Illustrations of Baptismal Fonts, London, UK: John van Voorst, 1844, p. 30
- Pevsner, Nikolaus, North Somerset and Bristol, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1958, p. 141, 276
- Rickman, Thomas, An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of Architecture in England, from the Conquest to the Reformation, with a Sketch of the Grecian and Roman Orders, An [7th ed. -- orig. published in 1817], Oxford and London: Parker and Co., 1881, ill. on p. 152
- Wade, G.H., Somerset, London: Methurn & Co., 1929, [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12287/12287-h/12287-h.htm] [accessed 8 April 2008]