Exeter No. 3 / Execestre / Exonia

No known copyright restriction / Fair Dealing

Results: 15 records

Click to view images and/or subjects

design element - architectural - arcade - blind - round arches

Scene Description: very narrow, all around the lower base, just above the central ring; arches or fluting

Image Source: digital photograph in wolfpaw [http://demolition-exeter.blogspot.ca/2010/12/st-mary-steps-church-west-street.html] [accessed 13 May 2018]

Copyright Instructions: No known copyright restriction / Fair Dealing

design element - motifs - moulding - chevron

Scene Description: large and closely linked, resembling a rope moulding

Image Source: digital photograph in wolfpaw [http://demolition-exeter.blogspot.ca/2010/12/st-mary-steps-church-west-street.html] [accessed 13 May 2018]

Copyright Instructions: No known copyright restriction / Fair Dealing

design element - motifs - palmette

Scene Description: large ones, under and over the waves of the ondulating moulding

Image Source: digital photograph in wolfpaw [http://demolition-exeter.blogspot.ca/2010/12/st-mary-steps-church-west-street.html] [accessed 13 May 2018]

Copyright Instructions: No known copyright restriction / Fair Dealing

design element - patterns - X-motif - inside a square - with dots

Scene Description: a narrow band all around just below the upper rim

Image Source: digital photograph in wolfpaw [http://demolition-exeter.blogspot.ca/2010/12/st-mary-steps-church-west-street.html] [accessed 13 May 2018]

Copyright Instructions: No known copyright restriction / Fair Dealing

view of church exterior - southeast view

Image Source: digital photograph taken 13 March 2011 by Robert Cutts [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Mary_Steps_Church,_Exeter.jpg] [accessed 13 May 2018]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of church exterior in context

Scene Description: Source caption: "St. Mary Steps, Exeter. A glimpse towards West Street from the Western Way"

Image Source: digital photograph taken 23 February 2010 by Jonathan Billinger [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1722932] [accessed 13 May 2018]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of font

Image Source: digital image of an illustration in Roger Peters [www.wissensdrang.com]

Copyright Instructions: Permission received (email of 9 January 2005)

view of font

Image Source: digital image of a drawing in Lysons (1806-1833)

Copyright Instructions: PD

view of font

Image Source: digital image of a drawing by O. Ralling in The Western Antiquary (January 1883)

Copyright Instructions: PD

view of font

Image Source: digital photograph in wolfpaw [http://demolition-exeter.blogspot.ca/2010/12/st-mary-steps-church-west-street.html] [accessed 13 May 2018]

Copyright Instructions: No known copyright restriction / Fair Dealing

view of font and cover

Image Source: digital image of B&W photograph in Bond (1908)

Copyright Instructions: PD

view of font and cover

Image Source: digital image of an illustration in Roger Peters [www.wissensdrang.com]

Copyright Instructions: Permission received (email of 9 January 2005)

view of font and cover in context

Scene Description: Source caption: "Norman font, St Mary Steps church, Exeter"

Image Source: digital photograph taken 14 September 2019 by David Smith [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6268063] [accessed 26 April 2021]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0

view of font cover

Image Source: digital image of an illustration in Roger Peters [www.wissensdrang.com] [detail]

Copyright Instructions: Permission received (email of 9 January 2005)

view of font cover

Scene Description: the cover is padlicked to one of the iron staples in the upper rim

Image Source: digital photograph in wolfpaw [http://demolition-exeter.blogspot.ca/2010/12/st-mary-steps-church-west-street.html] [accessed 13 May 2018]

Copyright Instructions: No known copyright restriction / Fair Dealing

INFORMATION

FontID: 05255EXE

Church/Chapel: Parish Church of St. Mary Steps

Church Patron Saints: St. Mary the Virgin

Church Location: West St, Exeter EX1 1BB, UK -- Tel.: +44 1392 677150

Country Name: England

Location: Devon, South West

Directions to Site: Located in West Street, Exeter, 60 km NE of Plymouth, about 100 km SW of Bristol

Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Exeter

Historical Region: Hundred of Wonford

Font Location in Church: Inside the church

Date: ca. 1199?

Century and Period: 12th century (late?), Late Norman

Cognate Fonts: Similar in style to the font at Farringdon, also in Devon [cf. FontNotes]

Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Dr. Roger Peters, of www.wissensdrang.com, for his permission to use the transcription of and images from Stabb (1908)]. We are also grateful to the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library for access to the copy of Lysons’ Magna Britannia, and to Jim Ingram, of the Preservation Services, Robarts Library, for the digital imaging of Lysons’ illustrations.

Church Notes: original church 1199

Font Notes: Click to view font notes

There are eighteen entries for Exeter [variant spellings] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SX9292/exeter/] [accessed 13 May 2018], of which two mention a church in it. Lysons (1806-1833) describes a baptismal font "among many of circular form and an early age, enriched with various carved mouldings, wreaths, scrolls, or foliage". Described and illustrated in The Western Antiquarian (issue of January 1883: 176) as "a fine example of a Norman font". Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Norman period. Described and illustrated in Bond (1908): Norman baptismal font of the 11th or 12th century; the roughly cylindrical font has two clearly demarcated parts: a profusely ornamented basin and a plain base; the basin sides have three registers of ornamentation: the upper one, at the rim side, has framed "X" motifs with dots in the resulting triangles; the middle register is wider and has an ondulating moulding framing large palmette motifs in its waves; the lower register has a blind arcade of very narrow arches; at the very bottom, a protruding moulding ornamented with large chevron pattern, resembling very much the rope moulding so common on Norman fonts of the period. The cylindrical base is totaly plain. In Bond's illustration (ibid.) the font is raised on an obviously modern plinth and is covered with a prismatic lid not very dissimilar from that on the Lanreath font. The dark fold of the lead lining of the inner basin well is clearly visible. Both font and cover are noted in Stabb (1908): "The Norman font [...] is very fine, and noted for a rather unusual feature in font ornament, viz., zigzag. It is said to be one of the four finest specimens of the period in Devonshire. There is a good font cover with small opening in front." Described in Clarke (1913). Howard & Crossley (1919) describe the cover as being of Gothic design but probably post-Reformation. Listed in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as a font decorated with a rope moulding among other motifs. In Pevsner (1952): "Norman, cylindrical, with crude palmette scroll, projecting cable mooulding lower down, and some other minor motifs." [NB: Drake (2003) gives this font as an example of "fonts in which human and animal figures are enclosed in the undulations of a vine tendril", but the source images available to us show only palmettes in that position].

COORDINATES

Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal: 50.71999, -3.5343

Church Latitude & Longitude DMS: 50° 43′ 11.96″ N, 3° 32′ 3.48″ W

UTM: 30U 462283 5618824

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone

Font Shape: tub-shaped (round)

Basin Interior Shape: round

Basin Exterior Shape: round

Drainage Notes: lead lining

Rim Thickness: 8.5 cm [calculated]

Diameter (inside rim): 47.5 cm*

Diameter (includes rim): 65 cm*

Basin Depth: 22.5 cm*

Font Height (less Plinth): 77.5 cm*

Font Height (with Plinth): 97.5 cm*

Notes on Measurements: * [measurements given in inches in Clarke (1913: 329)]

LID INFORMATION

Date: 17th-18th century?

Material: wood, oak?

Apparatus: no

Notes: octagonal pyramid with open-work on the sides; angel finial

REFERENCES

Betjeman, John, An American's Guide to English Parish Churches (including the Isle of Man), New York: McDowell, Obolensky, 1958

Bond, Francis, Fonts and Font Covers, London: Waterstone, 1985 c1908

Clarke, Kate M., "The baptismal fonts of Devon -- Part I", 45, Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art, 1913, pp. 314-329; r["References"]

Clarke, Kate M., "The baptismal fonts of Devon -- Part IV", 48, Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art, 1916, pp. 302-319; r["References"]

Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907

Drake, Colin Stuart, "Romanesque Fonts in Kent: the French Connections", CXXIII, 2003, Archaeologia Cantiana, 2003, pp. 333-352; r["References"]

Howard, F.E., English Church Woodwork: a Study in Craftmanship during the Mediaeval period A.D. 1250-1550, London: B.T. Batsford, 1919

Lysons, Daniel, Magna Britannia, being a concise topographical account of the several counties of Great Britain, London: Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1806-1822

Pevsner, Nikolaus, South Devon, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1952

Stabb, John, Some old Devon churches, their roods, pulpits, fonts, etc., London: Simkin, [et al.], 1908-1916

Tyrrell-Green, E., Baptismal Fonts Classified and Illustrated, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge: The Macmillan Co., 1928