Ashwater

Described in Lysons (1806-1822) as a square baptismal font decorated "with rude figures of animals [...] [and] grotesque heads at the angles". Bond (1908) mentions only the church at Ashwater in relation to the advocations to St. Peter ad Vincula. Described and illustrated in Stabb (1908): "There is a fine Norman font with faces or masks at the corners [...], it is constructed of some stone with the appearance of granite, but is certainly not of that material, it may be a stone of volcanic origin found in Cornwall. The font and north doorway are the only remains of Norman work in the church." Described and illustrated in Clarke (1919): "The principal designs are different on all four sides. The eastern face has a quatrefoil in the centre with trefoils springing from it, and an outer wheel with trefoils springing inwards. On the right of the wheel is a salamander, the corresponding spave on the left has a single leaf on a broad stem. The northern face has five conventional lilies surrounded by foliage inside the semicircular band. The western face has a lion withoun without a mane which closely resembles one on the font at St. Kea in Cornwall. There also it is on the western face. On the south are trefoils and foliage; this design and that on the eastern face are quite Early English in character [...] The description gives but a poor idea of the remarkable character of this font. I have said it is of Cornish type of construction, but the ornament is unique, and as far as I know there is no font in either Devon or Cornwall at all like it." Clarke (ibid.) identifies the material as "grey cliff stone". Described in Pevsner (1952): "Font. Norman, with angle faces and on the main sides tendrils, scrolls, etc., and also on the W side a running animal in a frame with two symmetrical animal-heads." The Devon Library & Information Services; WEB page quotes an extract from W.G. Hoskins' Devon (1954: 323) describing the baptismal font in the church as "a splendid Norman font of a Cornish type, with unique ornament." [We are grateful to Dr. Roger Peters, of www.wissensdrang.com, for his permission to use the transcription of and images from Stabb (1908)] -- [a recent illustration of this font can be found at www.thirdman.ukhq.co.uk]