Harpenden
Image copyright © Thomas Nugent, 2013
CC-BY-SA-2.0
Results: 6 records
view of church exterior - northwest end
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Thomas Nugent, 2013
Image Source: digital photograph taken 11 February 2013 by Thomas Nugent [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3333594] [accessed 20 September 2016]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0
view of church exterior - south view
Scene Description: Source caption: "St Nicholas Church. Set in a nicely landscaped churchyard in the cenree of town, St Nicholas is the oldest known church in Harpenden. Built as a Chapel-of-Ease in about 1217,it was enlarged and the existing tower added in 1470. The old church was demolished in 1861 to make way for a larger building. The tower contains a ring of eight bells, the oldest of which dates from 1612. St Nicholas is a Church of England Parish within the Wheathampstead Deanery in the Diocese of St Albans."
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Thomas Nugent, 2013
Image Source: digital photograph taken 11 February 2013 by Thomas Nugent [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3333577] [accessed 20 September 2016]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0
view of church interior - nave - looking west
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Salmon, 2007
Image Source: digital photograph taken 16 March 2007 by John Salmon [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/370469] [accessed 21 September 2016]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0
view of church interior - nave - looking east
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Salmon, 2007
Image Source: digital photograph taken 16 March 2007 by John Salmon [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/370460] [accessed 21 September 2016]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0
view of font and cover
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Hertfordshire Churches in Photographs, 2024
Image Source: digital photograph in Hertfordshire Churches in Photographs [https://hertfordshirechurches.wordpress.com/] [accessed 31 May 2024]
Copyright Instructions: PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE – IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE
design element - architectural - arcade - blind - pointed arches - 16
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Hertfordshire Churches in Photographs, 2024
Image Source: digital photograph in Hertfordshire Churches in Photographs [https://hertfordshirechurches.wordpress.com/] [accessed 31 May 2024]
Copyright Instructions: PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE – IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE
INFORMATION
Font ID: 05937HAR
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Date: ca. 1200?
Font Century and Period/Style: 12th - 13th century [basin only], Medieval [restored font] [composite font]
Cognate Fonts: Sutton, Beccles, Denham and many others all over England
Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. Nicholas
Font Location in Church: Inside the church, W end of S aisle
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Nicholas of Myra
Church Address: Church Grn, Harpenden AL5 2TP, United Kingdom -- Tel.: +44 1582 765524
Site Location: Hertfordshire, East, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located on the A1081 a few kms N of St. Albans, S of Luton
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of St. Albans
Historical Region: Hundred of Dacorum
Additional Comments: altered font (restored in 1862 [cf. FontNotes]) -- moved font? (was this font originally from Wheathampstead [cf. VCH footnote in FontNotes]
Font Notes:
Click to view
No entry found for Harpenden in the Domesday survey. The 'Building news and architectural review' (vol. 9, issue of 21 November 1862: 402) reports the recent re-consecration of the Church of St. Nicholas, "having been entirely re-built, with the exception of the tower [...] The dilapidated font, of Purbeck marble, has been restored to its original design." Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) and in Tompkins (1922) as a baptismal font of the Norman period Tyrrell-Green (1928) writes: "The octagonal form persisted in fonts of the same class in the thirteenth century, with the change that in the Early English style pointed arches take the place of rounded ones in the shallow incised arcading". This font is, according to T-G, one of them. The Victoria County History (Hertfordshire, vol. 2, 1908) reports that a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas in Harpenden was involved in a dispute involving also the church at Wheathampstead [cf. Index entry for the latter]; "By a deed dated 22 December, 1319, Pope John XXII granted to the inhabitants of Harpenden licence to receive sacraments and sacramentals", which would suggest the dispensation of baptism would be included; in this respect the VCH (ibid) adds in a footnote: " If the font now in the church belonged originally to Harpenden chapel, the sacrament of baptism must have been administered here some hundred and twenty years before the date of this licence. It would seem possible that this font may have come from the mother church of Wheathampstead at the time that Harpenden chapel was licensed for sacraments in 1319, as it is evident that Wheathampstead had a new font then or a little later." Noted in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, Hertforshire (1911): "Font: Purbeck marble, panelled bowl of c. 1200, on modern shafts." Listed in Leach (1975) as a font made of Purbeck marble; "subsidiary shafts are modern". In Pevsner & Cherry (1977): "Font. Of c.1200, an octagonal bowl of Purbeck marble with two blank pointed arches on each panel."
COORDINATES
UTM: 30U 682108 5744059
Latitude & Longitude (Decimal): 51.817654, -0.357827
Latitude & Longitude (DMS): 51° 49′ 3.55″ N, 0° 21′ 28.18″ W
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material: stone, limestone (Purbeck marble)
Font Shape: octagonal, mounted
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: octagonal
LID INFORMATION
Date: modern
Material: wood, oak?
Apparatus: no
Notes: round, flat and plain; modern
REFERENCES
- Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.
- Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907, p. 202
- Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Hertfordshire, London: Printed for His Majesty's Stationary Office by J. Truscott, 1911, p. 107
- Leach, Rosemary, A Investigation into the use of Purbeck Marble in Medieval England, Hartlepool: E.W. Harrisons & Sons, 1975, p. 77
- Pevsner, Nikolaus, Hertfordshire, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1977, p. 157
- Tompkins, Herbert Winckworth, Hertfordshire, London: Methuen & Co., 1922, [www.guttenberg.org/files/18252/18252-8.txt]
- Tyrrell-Green, E., Baptismal Fonts Classified and Illustrated, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge: The Macmillan Co., 1928, p. 29