Bosbury No. 2 / Boseberge

Described and illustrated in Bond (1908) as a baptismal font of the 13th century; the upper basin is square and, unlike most fonts with a columnar base, the four outer colonnettes connect at the centre of the basin sides, not at the angles; there is also a central shaft; the whole is raised on a square lower base and a modern plinth. The only ornamentation are the foliage motifs on the capitals of the base. Cox & Harvey (1907) list a Saxon font is Bosbury [cf. Index entry for Bosbury No. 1], as well as an Early English one (ibid.). The Herefordshire inventory (1931-1934) dates it to ca. 1200. Described in Halsey (1987) as one of eight baptismal fonts "made of a local reddish brown, psammitic limestone, called 'Breccia' or 'Cornstone'", that were the work of the Herefordshire School [NB: the eight fonts are: Bishops Frome, Bosbury, Bredwardine, Kilpeck, Kingstone, Madley, Turnastone and Vowchurch]. Halsey (ibid.) describes the font at Bosbury as "a large Transitional-style capital" with a decorated rim or abacus; he mentions traces of limewash on it and cites George Marshall's (1959) theory that it was "painted to imitate marble, perhaps in the 17th century". The entry for this church in Historic England [Listing NGR: SO6954843449] notes: "Parish church. Late C12 or early C13, incorporating fabric of earlier C12 building, C15 south porch and early C16 Morton Chapel by Thomas Morton, died 1511, brother of the then Archbishop of Canterbury. Church restored 1871 [...] font: c1200 square base with five shafts supporting square bowl with rounded concave sides". Listed and illustrated in the CRSBI [https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=5249] [accessed 10 March 2024]: "At the W end of the S aisle stands the font currently in use. It has a Purbeck bowl in the form of a hollow belled capital block capital, square at the top and round at the bottom, on 5 shafts with integral capitals and bases. The shafts stand on a square base, hollow chamfered with the angles chamfered off, and this on a step. Both base and step are modern. The bowl is lead lined and there are lock marks on the rim at N and S. The central shaft is octagonal with a low block for a capital and an elaborate octagonal chamfered base with leaves on the chamfers and nailhead straps at the angles. The outer shafts are more slender. The E shaft is octagonal and the others cylindrical. The capitals are of the flat-leaf type and bases are attic." [cf. BSI entry for Bosbury No. 1 for an earlier font said to be pre-Conquest]