Thame

A copper engraving of this font, by Frederick Mackenzie (1788-1854), appears in Joseph Skelton’s 'Antiquities of Oxfordshire' (1823). Tymms (1834) comments: "for immersion, singular in design". The Ecclesiastical and Architectural Topography of England: Oxfordshire (1850) notes: "The font is E[arly] E[nglish], round, enriched with foliage." Noted and illustrated in Lee (1883), who describess the font move from the western end of the nave to the centre aisle, as "a great mistake and a great blunder [...] where [...] it efficiently obstructs the carrying of corpses through the western door, on a level with the churchyard, without ascent or descent; it bars the progress both of marriage and funeral processions, and is altogether in its wrong place. The two stone steps upon which it previously stood were removed; the socket of the branch for the 'font-taper' extracted, put aside, and lost; the old oaken lid with which the Font was covered was taken away and never replaced; the drain for the blessed water, when used, to be let off, was of purpose stopped up, so that ever since the period in question the Font has never been filled, but a small crockery dish is apparently used in its stead. The Font is of rare antiquity and interest, carved in close-grained freestone, and probably not less than six hundred and fifty years old. Octagonal in shape as regards the bowl, it now stands exactly three feet and six inches in height. The bowl itself is two feet and a half in diameter, measured from edge to edge, but the hollow circle containing the leaden basin measures only two feet and one inch. On one side the stone is shattered, from which part the fastening which formerly secured the hinge to the cover has evidently been wrenched." Lee (ibid.) notes also several entries in the church-wardens books: in 1455 and 1552, for instance, they note expenditures related to the font and its accutrements. The font is described in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as an octagonal mounted baptismal font of the Norman period ornamented with a rope moulding. In Sherwood & Pevsner (1974): "Made up of fragments. The re-cut octagonal bowl and band of leaf decoration are C13. On the base is C12 cable-moulding. The C17 wooden cover has strapwork cresting and a ball fimial." The font looks very strange and awkward, perhaps from its being a composite object: the basin is octagonal on its upper half, the only decoration being a flat moulding at its upper rim, but the lower half is rounded, curving in at the underbowl to a large centre ring made of a band of foliage between two roll mouldings, then a plain and short cylindrical stem, and a broad rope moulding at the lower end of the base; it is raised on a tiny octagonal plinth.