St. Levan No. 1 / Saint Levan

Noted in 'On the ancient stone fonts of Cornwall' (1851): "I noticed but one font which can be called strictly " Transitional," from the Romanesque to the First-Pointed style. It is that at S. Levan, near the Land's End, and is a very singular example. The bowl, which is round, but with a flat bottom, stands upon a single shaft, which is circular and very plain. On the sides of the bowl are a species of large open flower having crosses in their eyes. Around the upper rim of the font runs a band of the dog-tooth ornament, and around the lower part, an elegantly carved string of the cable moulding." Mounted bucket-shaped baptismal font probably of the Transitional period, not unlike the font at Eastby ; the bucket-shaped basin has a band of framed dog-tooth motif [X in a square] at the upper basin side, and a thick rope moulding around the lower basin side; the space in between these two bands is ornamented with four (?) large stylised floral motifs in low relief at the four cardinal points; the base is a plain cylindrical pedestal; the lower is square and the plinth is square with kneeling stone. Blight (1862) states: "About twenty years ago it was carefully scraped and cleaned -- it is therefore free from lime-wash, and its star and cable mouldings are in good preservation". Cox (1912) notes a "good circular Norm[an] font with star ornament round rim". Noted in Pevsner (1970) as "an exceptional Norman type with a large circular bowl having a lower border of cable, an upper border of chipped-carved saltire crosses, and four flat motifs of stars in circles on the sides." [cf. Index entry for St. Levan No. 2 for a wall-mounted holy-water stoup in this church]. This church is one of several in Cornwall and Wales in which the church was built near a holy well. Tyrrell-Green (1928: 11) informs that "chapels were sometimes built either directly above holy wells or in such close proximity to them that a simple arrangement could be made for the water from the sacred spring to flow into a reservoir within the chapel. It is probable that these well-chapels were erected in the first instance to serve as baptisteries", which would account for the choice of this church site, as well as those at Callington, Llangibby, Mathern, St. Cleer near Liskeard and others. In this place, only traces are left.One of several churches in Cornwall and Wales in which the church was built near a holy well.