Walsgrave on Sowe / Walsgrave-on-Sowe

Image copyright © The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, 2015
PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE -- IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE
Results: 6 records
design element - architectural - arcade - blind - round arches
view of basin
view of church exterior - south view
view of church interior - looking east
view of font
view of font
INFORMATION
FontID: 05665WAL
Church/Chapel: Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin
Church Patron Saints: St. Mary the Virgin
Church Location: Hall Lane, Walsgrave-on-Sowe, West Midlans CV2 2UA
Country Name: England
Location: West Midlands, West Midlands
Directions to Site: Located on the A46, just below ther junction with the M6, in the NE outskirts of Coventry -- the church stands on the corner of Ansty Road and Hall Lane, at the main cross-roads of the village
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Coventry
Historical Region: Hundred of Stoneleigh [in Domesday] -- formerly Warwickshire
Font Location in Church: Inside the church, in the N side, E end
Century and Period: 12th century, Late Norman
Cognate Fonts: Arcade motif is somewhat similar to the one on the font at Wyken, in the same county
Font Notes: Click to view font notes
There are two entries for [Walsgrave-on-]Sowe [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SP3781/walsgrave-on-sowe/] [accessed 11 March 2015], neither of which mentions cleric or church in it. A font here is described and illustrated in Bond (1908) as a bucket-shaped baptismal font of the Norman period/style; the sides of the basin are ornamented with a blind arcade of round arches. Bond (ibid.) describes the capitals of the arcade as inverted cushion capitals. The Victoria County History (Warwick, vol. 8, 1969) notes; "Sowe chapel was on the ancient estate of Coventry Priory, and was not one of the Chester chapels granted to the priory in the 12th century. [...] The chapel and chaplain are first called the church and the vicar in the early 17th century. [...] The font in the present church is the only visible survival of the Norman building. [...] [the church] dates mainly from the 14th and 15th centuries, but retains its Norman font. [...] The parish registers, which begin in 1538 and are complete [...] The 12th-century font is circular and is carved with arcading in shallow relief; it closely resembles the font at St. Mary Magdalen, Wyken." Described and illustrated as a mounted font [in March 1995] in the CRSBI (2015): the font is made of red sandstone; the arcade is noteworthy for having columns that share neither jambs nor imposts, and for having bases to the columns created by a simple incised line all around. The basin appears in 1995 mounted on a plain circular base and a similarly shaped plinth. This whole structure is now raised on a second plinth of modern date.
COORDINATES
Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal:
52.424061,
-1.444088
Church Latitude & Longitude DMS:
52° 25′ 26.62″ N,
1° 26′ 38.72″ W
UTM: 30U 605799 5809344
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material:
stone, sandstone (red)
Font Shape: bucket-shaped (mounted)
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: round
Rim Thickness: 9.5 cm [calculated]
Diameter (inside rim): 53 cm*
Diameter (includes rim): 72 cm*
Basin Total Height: 40 cm*
Notes on Measurements: * CRSBI (2015)
REFERENCES
Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. Accessed: 2015-03-11 00:00:00. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.
Bond, Francis, Fonts and Font Covers, London: Waterstone, 1985 c1908
Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland. Accessed: 2003-07-14 00:00:00. URL: http://www.crsbi.ac.uk.