Colebrook / Colebrooke / Colebroke

Bond (1908) describes and illustrates a Jacobean font cover, of the pointed dome type, with an angel finial. Bond does not mention the font itself. There is a 15th century font [...] with a cover, which is probably considerably older; it is surmounted by a winged figure with two faces, the wings were added when the figure was restored by Mr. Harry Hems. I should say that it is rather doubtful if the figure in its original state had wings; there is an amice round the neck, a short supplice, and cassock, but no chasuble or stole, and I should think it is intended to represent a lay server, if so it must be of early date, as the amice was first recognised as one of the Eucharistic vestments in 900." In Howard & Crossley (1919). The font itself consists of an octagonal basin with vertical sides that taper in at the underbowl to an octagonal stem and a moulded lower base, also octagonal. The panels of the basin are decorated with blank (?) shields and deeply carved cross-shaped windows; the lower part of the bowl has trefoil foliage forming an overhang which forms the underbowl, the arrises of the bowl becoming the buttresses of the stem; the panels of the stem have an Ogee window on each, containing two trefoil arches; the lower basin is moulded. Contrary to Stabb's remark, the wooden cover is not of an earlier period but, rather, of a later one, Jacobean, as Bond states, notwithstanding the date on the winged finial figure, which may just refer to the finial itself. In Pevsner (1952): "Font. Octagonal, Perp[endicular], with quatrefoil panels and shields; tracery on the broad pillar." The Parish web site [http://www.colebrooke.org/church/history2.html] [accessed 19 January 2009] describes the font: "in the nave, is the fifteenth-century font with the staple and hinge fastening of an early lid still to be seen. The notable cover, surmounted by a winged angel in amice and girdled alb, is thought to be Jacobean. On one side amongst various gouge marks, can be discerned the date 1832, the year the Gallery was erected. The font then occupied a position near the North Aisle. It reverted to its present position in 1895" and cover, and reports that repairs were made to font cover in 1977.