Ramsbury / Ramesberie

Image and permission received from the author (e-mail of 28 August 2020)

Results: 21 records

Click to view images and/or subjects

animal - fish

Scene Description: one of the four

Image Source: digital photograph taken 28 February 2020 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from the author (e-mail of 28 August 2020)

animal - fish

Scene Description: one of the four

Image Source: digital photograph taken 28 February 2020 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from the author (e-mail of 28 August 2020)

animal - fish - 4

Scene Description: swimming clockwise around the basin well bottom

Image Source: digital image of a drawing in Tyrrell-Green (1928: fig. 39)

Copyright Instructions: PD

design element - patterns - floral - square flower

Scene Description: the pattern is described in at least two of the sources [cf. FontNotes] as imitation the surface of a pineapple

Image Source: digital photograph taken 28 February 2020 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from the author (e-mail of 28 August 2020)

view of base

Image Source: digital photograph taken 28 February 2020 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from the author (e-mail of 28 August 2020)

view of base - detail

Scene Description: may be a detail of the scene of Jonah being cast up by the whale

Image Source: greyscale version of a digital photograph taken March 2002 by Duncan & Mandy Ball [http://www.oodwooc.co.uk/ph_rams_in.htm] [accessed 24 December 2008]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of base - detail

Scene Description: detail of the scene in which Christ blesses the children

Image Source: greyscale version of a digital photograph taken March 2002 by Duncan & Mandy Ball [http://www.oodwooc.co.uk/ph_rams_in.htm] [accessed 24 December 2008]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of base - detail

Image Source: greyscale version of a digital photograph taken March 2002 by Duncan & Mandy Ball [http://www.oodwooc.co.uk/ph_rams_in.htm] [accessed 24 December 2008]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of base - detail

Image Source: greyscale version of a digital photograph taken March 2002 by Duncan & Mandy Ball [http://www.oodwooc.co.uk/ph_rams_in.htm] [accessed 24 December 2008]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of base - detail

Image Source: greyscale version of a digital photograph taken March 2002 by Duncan & Mandy Ball [http://www.oodwooc.co.uk/ph_rams_in.htm] [accessed 24 December 2008]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of base - detail

Scene Description: Christ blessing the children [cf. Font notes]

Image Source: digital photograph taken 28 February 2020 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from the author (e-mail of 28 August 2020)

view of basin - interior

Scene Description: the four fish and the drain and plug are clearly visible here in te context of the whole basin interior

Image Source: digital photograph taken 28 February 2020 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from the author (e-mail of 28 August 2020)

view of basin - interior - detail

Image Source: digital photograph taken March 2002 by Duncan & Mandy Ball [http://www.oodwooc.co.uk/ph_rams_in.htm] [accessed 24 December 2008]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of church exterior - southeast view

Image Source: digital photograph taken 28 February 2020 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from the author (e-mail of 28 August 2020)

view of church interior - lapidarium - detail

Scene Description: the contents of the lapidary are described in the entry for this church in Historic England [Listing NGR: SU2738271592]: "West end of north aisle: Group of important Saxon and later fragments set on base; Cross shaft, C9, limestone, three blocks from two crosses, interlace to two sides. Biting beast on two sides of base and inhabited scroll. Parts of two C9 tomb slabs, one with chain interlace, second with interlace and cross bifurcating with recurring beast terminals. Fragment of third slab with relief cross in Ringerike style, and small fragment, probably a cross shaft, chain interlace with blank back. Also C13 cross slab with stepped elaborate cross and part of a second, with diverse other medieval fragments and terracotta pieces. Some encaustic tiles of C14-C15."

Image Source: digital photograph taken 28 February 2020 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from the author (e-mail of 28 August 2020)

view of church interior - lapidarium - detail

Image Source: digital photograph taken 28 February 2020 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from the author (e-mail of 28 August 2020)

view of church interior - lapidarium - detail

Image Source: digital photograph taken 28 February 2020 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from the author (e-mail of 28 August 2020)

view of font

Image Source: digital photograph taken 28 February 2020 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from the author (e-mail of 28 August 2020)

view of font - east side

Image Source: digital photograph taken 28 February 2020 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from the author (e-mail of 28 August 2020)

view of font in context

Image Source: digital image of a colour post-card ca. 1908 in the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, Chippenham

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of font in context - west side

Scene Description: the font in its location at the west end of the nave

Image Source: digital photograph taken 28 February 2020 by Colin Smith

Copyright Instructions: Image and permission received from the author (e-mail of 28 August 2020)

INFORMATION

FontID: 05871RAM

Church/Chapel: Parish Church of the Holy Cross

Church Patron Saints: The Holy Cross

Church Location: Dyers Yard, Ramsbury, Wiltshire, SN8 2QH

Country Name: England

Location: Wiltshire, South West

Directions to Site: Located off (W) the B4192, about 9 km ENE of Marlborough, SE of Swindon

Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Salisbury [but Ramsbury still has a suffragant bishop]

Historical Region: Hundred of Ramsbury

Font Location in Church: Inside the church, at the W end of the nave

Century and Period: 12th century [basin only] [modern re-carving?] / 19th century, Medieval [composite]

Workshop/Group/Artisan: fish font

Cognate Fonts: Other fonts or stoups with "swimming" fish: Dinan and Courseult in France; Acerenza in Italy

Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to the Wiltshire County Council Libraries & Heritage, to Duncan & Mandy Ball [www.oodwooc.co.uk] and to Colin Smith, for their photographs of church and font

Font Notes: Click to view font notes

There is an entry for Ramsbury [variant spelling] in the Domesday survet [http://opendomesday.org/place/SU2771/ramsbury/] [accessed 12 November 2017], but the entry mentions neither priest nor church in it, though there may have been one in it. Cox & Harvey (1907) list this as a baptismal font of the Norman period. Noted in Holmes (1922): "finely sculptured font". Described and illustrated in Tyrrell-Green (1928): "the font at Ramsbury (Wilts) [...] is unique in having life-like representations of fishes carved within the bowl, so that they appear to swim in the baptismal water, and suggest the thought expressed by Tertulian, and quoted above [De baptismo, i.: 'We smaller fishes, after the example of our Fish (Christ), are born in the water, and it is only by continuing in the water that we are safe'], as to the Christian being born in the element of water." [NB: contrary to Tyrrel-Green's statement, this is not a unique example of a font in which fish swim; the fonts/stoups at Dinan and Courseult in France, and the stoup at Acerenza in Italy, are some examples of baptismal vessels in which fish appear at the bottom of the well. Other animals are thus portrayed: the frog at Narbonne, for example, and the Agnus Dei at Carbonne [all these other examples have entries in this Index]]. [NB: Holmes (1922) notes also two finely sculptured stoups -north and south doors -- not included in this Index due to lack of information at present]. Described and illustrated in Buck (1951); some of his notes were "extracted from a leaflet which I obtained when visiting the church in 1940: 'The font is partly modern and partly ancient. The bowl, presented by the Lord of the Manor in 1842, is said to have been found in the Manor grounds, where originally stood the Bishop's Palace. The pedestal was carved by the late Mr. Thomas Meyrick, who lived in Ramsbury, but is a very interesting and beautifully executed piece of work. The four subjects on the pedestal represent --(1)Christ blessing the children, (2) The passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea, (3) Noah releasing the dove, (4) Jonah cast up by the whale.'" Buck, then, continues his own observations: "On examining the bowl of the font, however, I could find no trace of cover fastenings, which should have been there if it wre part of an ancient font; further, I thought that the carving on the outside was too deep and freshly cut to have been Norman, as the bowl has been described by some writers." Buck (ibid.) further adduces that a letter dated 4 July 1870 published in W.A.M., vol. XLV, p. 494 states that Thomas Meyrick brought a bowl from the Manor and carved a base for it himself; the bowl "appears to have been a stone carved in imitation of a pine-apple and its original position might have been to crown the top of some pier [...] prior to that a plain basin was used that [...] stood in the chancel." Buck (ibid.) concludes: "From these extracts I deduce that the pine cone was discarded when the present lodges were built and alterations made to the approach in 1775, and that it lay in the Manor grounds until 1842". Noted in Pevsner & Cherry (1975): "Font. Of goblet-shape, with a diaper pattern. The scenes carved in relief against the stem are the work of a local gentleman, Mr Thomas Merick. He did them in 1842." Noted in the Victoria County History (Wiltshire, vol. 12, 1983): "Parts of two cross shafts and three tomb slabs, all of stone carved in the late 9th century, were found beneath Ramsbury church in 1891. [...] They suggest that before 900 there was a large and architecturally elaborate church at Ramsbury, and the creation of a bishopric of Ramsbury in the early 10th century supports the suggestion. [...] The invocation of the church, called Holy Cross in 1405 and almost certainly in 1323 [...] Apart from the cross shafts and tomb slabs, (fn. 815) the oldest part of the present church is the long 13th-century chancel [...] The bowl of the font, of stone carved in the shape of a pineapple, was possibly an ornament on a gateway of Ramsbury Manor replaced c. 1775. The base was carved by Thomas Meyrick c. 1842". [NB: Buck [cf. supra] is probably right in his deductions that the object is a Victorian production. The argument of the lack of fastening evidence from the old cover would be in itself fairly convincing, unless the upper rim of the basin had been trimmed off the corresponding height; Buck gives the depth of the inner well of the basin as 12 1/2 inches [31.75 cm] which, combined with a trimmed upper rim might produce a deep-enough well for an old font; the pattern of the finish might have been helpful, though not if all the surfaces had been re-carved; ditto the drain hole and passage, both on the basin and base. Again, in balance, and looking at the remaining evidence, it is probably safe to adscribe a late date to the object]. The CRSBI (2017) does not mention this font in its entry for the church.

COORDINATES

Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal: 51.442739, -1.608593

Church Latitude & Longitude DMS: 51° 26′ 33.86″ N, 1° 36′ 30.94″ W

UTM: 30U 596700 5699979

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone

Font Shape: round (mounted) -- egg-cup (mounted)

Basin Interior Shape: round

Basin Exterior Shape: round

Diameter (includes rim): 77.47 cm*

Basin Depth: 31.75 cm*

Font Height (less Plinth): 96.52 cm*

Notes on Measurements: * in inches in Buck (1951)

REFERENCES

Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. Accessed: 2008-09-17 00:00:00. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.

Buck, A.G. Randle, "Some Wiltshire fonts. Part III", LIV, CXCV (December 1951), The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 1951, pp. 192-209; r["References"]

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

Cox, John Charles, Nottinghamshire, London: Allen, 1912

Davies, J.G., The Architectural Setting of Baptism, London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1962

Holmes, Edric, Wanderings in Wessex: an Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter, London: Robert Scott Roxburghe House, [1922]

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