Bloxham / Blochesham
Image copyright © Peter Austin, 2010
Standing permission
Results: 13 records
view of font
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Peter Austin, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 1 August 2010 by Peter Austin
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of font and cover
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Peter Austin, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 1 August 2010 by Peter Austin
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of font and cover
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Wilkes, 2006
Image Source: digital photograph by John Wilkes [www.allthecotswolds.com]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of font and cover
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © [in the public domain]
Image Source: B&W photograph in Bond (1908)
Copyright Instructions: PD
view of font
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © [in the public domain]
Image Source: woodcut by Orlando Jewitt in The Church Builder (1873) and in Rickman & Parker (1881)
Copyright Instructions: PD
design element - architectural - buttress - crocketed pinnacle - 8
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Peter Austin, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 1 August 2010 by Peter Austin
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
design element - patterns - tracery
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Peter Austin, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 1 August 2010 by Peter Austin
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of church exterior - east view
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Colin Smith, 2015
Image Source: digital photograph taken 30 December 2014 by Colin Smith
Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received (e-mail of 16 March 2015)
view of church exterior - west tower - detail
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Wilkes, 2006
Image Source: digital photograph by John Wilkes [www.allthecotswolds.com]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of font and cover in context
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Colin Smith, 2015
Image Source: digital photograph taken 30 December 2014 by Colin Smith
Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received (e-mail of 16 March 2015)
view of font and cover in context
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Peter Austin, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 1 August 2010 by Peter Austin
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of font cover
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Peter Austin, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 1 August 2010 by Peter Austin
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of church exterior - tympanum
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Wilkes, 2006
Image Source: digital photograph by John Wilkes [www.allthecotswolds.com]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
INFORMATION
Font ID: 04811BLO
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Date: ca. 1350?
Font Century and Period/Style: 14th century (mid?), Decorated
Cognate Fonts: somewhat similar to the font at Shottesbrooke, in Berkshire, and the one at Northampton St. Peter's
Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. Mary
Font Location in Church: Inside the church, at the W end of the nave
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Mary the Virgin
Church Address: Bloxham OX15 4ET, UK
Site Location: Oxfordshire, South East, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located 5 km SW of Banbury (dir. Chipping Norton)
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Oxford
Historical Region: Hundred of Bloxham
Additional Comments: disappeared font? (the one from the pre-Conquest church here)
Font Notes:
Click to view
There is an entry for Bloxham [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [www.domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SP4235/bloxham/] [accessed 20 March 2015], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. The Ecclesiastical and Architectural Topography of England: Oxfordshire (1850) notes: "The font is D[ecorated], octagonal panelled" [with reference to an earlier ed. of Rickman's Architecture]. Described and illustrated in The Church Builder (issue no. 47 July 1873: 87) and in Rickman & Parker (1881), with woodcut by Orlando Jewitt, as a Decorated baptismal font dated ca. 1350, which, like the font at Northampton St. Peter's, "are illustrations of that primitive type of font which treats it as a well. They who remember the wells in the courtyard of the Doge's Palace at Venice [...] will understand this resemblance to a well." The font appears monolithic and has an octagonal unmounted shape with a round inner well in the basin; each side is framed right and left by a buttress with crocketed pinacle; in between these buttresses opens a Gothic window with a mullion that divides it into two trefoil arches; the tips of the windows are shaped like a flower. There is no lower base or plinth. Described and illustrated in Bond (1908), who shows the font with the octagonal pyramidal cover on it. Noted in Kelly's Oxford Directory of 1911 [www.historicaldirectories.org/hd/d.asp] [accessed 30 June 2007]: "the font is octagonal with traceried panels, buttresses and pinnacles, and dates from 1530" [sic]. Noted in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as one of group of 14th-century fonts in the Decorated style ornamented with varied patterns of blind tracery (in this group are: Offley in Herts.; Weobley in Hereford; Goadby Marwood and Noseley in Leics.; Barrowby, Carlton Scroope and Haydor in Lincs.; Northampton St. Peter's; Kiddington, Bloxham and Woodstock in Oxon.;Brailes in Warwick, and Patrington in Yorkshire). The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Oxon., vol. 9, 1969) notes: "The earliest evidence of the existence of a church at Bloxham is a charter of 1067 by which William I granted it to Westminster Abbey [...] Since Bloxham was an important royal manor in the late Anglo-Saxon period, (fn. 387) however, its church was probably founded before the Conquest [...] The existing church is predominantly of 14th-century date and apart from its tower and spire [...] The late-medieval font with its Jacobean cover was moved [in 1864] to its present position in the south aisle." Noted in Sherwood and Pevsner (1974): "Font. C15, with a Jacobean cover."
Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to John Wilkes, of www.allthecotswolds.com, to Colin Smith, and to Peter Austin [aka peet-astn] for their photographs of church and font.
COORDINATES
UTM: 30U 611530 5764276
Latitude & Longitude (Decimal): 52.0179, -1.3747
Latitude & Longitude (DMS): 52° 1′ 4.44″ N, 1° 22′ 28.92″ W
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material: stone
Number of Pieces: one?
Font Shape: octagonal, unmounted
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: octagonal
LID INFORMATION
Date: 17th century? / Jacobean?
Material: wood, oak?
Notes: the lower part is octagonal with vertical sides; the panels of these sides are rectangular (wider than taller) and ornamented; the upper part is pyramidal and ha a knowb finial; there appears to be a floral or foliage motif on the lower part of the upper sides
REFERENCES
- Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.
- Bond, Francis, Fonts and Font Covers, London: Waterstone, 1985 c1908, p. 43, 231, 233, 289 and ill. on p. 236
- Kelly, Kelly's Directory of Oxfordshire, London: Kelly's Directories Ltd., 1911, p. 55
- Parker, John Henry, The Ecclesiastical and architectural topography of England: Oxfordshire, Oxford, London: Published under the sanction of the Central Commitee of the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland [by] John Henry Parker, 1850
- Pevsner, Nikolaus, Oxfordshire, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974, p. 479
- 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. 225
- Tyrrell-Green, E., Baptismal Fonts Classified and Illustrated, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge: The Macmillan Co., 1928, p. 96