Lustleigh / Listleigh (Devon)

No entry found for Lustleigh in the Domesday survey. White's Directory of 1850 reports a Norman font in this church. Noted and illustrated in Hutchinson (2010 edition), after his visit to this church on 1 August 1884. Hutchinson described the font as "peculiarly shaped" due to the mouldings on the lower base. He depicted the font with a flat round wooden cover with a ring handle. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Norman period. Described and illustrated in Bond (1908): "a remarkable granite font at Lustleigh, Devon [...], which appears to have seven supports; the central one being a block which looks as if it may originally have been an independent font, as at Morwenstow." Bond (ibid) lists this font among those of the 11th-12th century at one point, but, later lists it again as a font of "Romanesque design [that] lingered on into Gothic days [...], probably of late twelfth century or early thirteenth century date". This font is rather strange since it appears to be two fonts in one, as Bond (ibid.) admits when he states the resemblance of the central shaft of the base of this font with the font at Morwenstow [cf. supra] (a plain quasi-cylindrical broad pillar with a constraining thick rope moulding around its middle); the basin itself is almost cylindrical, with somewhat rounded sides, resting on six (?) outer colonnettes and raised on an octagonal plinth. The identity of the shaft of the base is confirmed in Stabb (1908): "There is a font supported on what appears to be a large central shaft surrounded by smaller ones, but the central shaft is really the old Norman font with cable moulding." Similarly noted in Pevsner (1952): "The primitive Norman font forms the centre of an imitation Norman font." The whole object is probably a composite fabrication using two different baptismal fonts; the current basin appears to be also an ancient one, probably Norman, not very dissimilar from the one at Kilpeck, for instance; the part serving now as central support does indeed resemble early fonts surch as the one at Morvenstow, and was likely a former font in its own right; the six outer columns are a later addition, perhaps a replacement of the original ones that supported the round basin; this type of column is typical of the Victorian period, which would suggest a date for the reconstruction; the lower base is consistent with the type the basin would have had originally. We do not know when this object was put together, nor do we know the origin of the parts. The wooden font is round and flat, with a decorated top; appears Victorian. [NB: the village pub, The Cleave, has a large stone planter in the Bar & Beer Garden, that looks very much like a baptismal font [cf. ImagesArea]; e-mailed the pub asking for information (22 November 2021)