Lurgashall

Lewis' Dictionary of 1848 reports "a very fine font of Sussex marble" in this church. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a square Restoration baptismal font dated 1661 and made of local Petworth marble. Described in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as the surviving fragment of an old baptismal font from this church; the fragment was reported in the south cloister ca. 1928. "The Luggarshall example" (ibid., p. 132) "is dated 1661 [...]. The fonts are square, and belonging to the tub-like class, but their peculiar expression is gained by carving their surface into the semblance of square blocks which alternatively protrude and recede". It is ornamented with a low-relief blind arcade (ibid., p. 75). [NB: it is not clear whether or not all the descriptive elements mentioned in Tyrrell-Green refer to the fragment, or, alternatively, the Post-Reformation font is whole and the cloister fragment is from an earlier period]. Harrison (1920) does not mention the font in this church but writes: "This E[arly] E[nglish] church has 16th c. wooden cloister on the S[outh] of nave. The tower (Perp[endicular]) was rebuilt in 17th c. Parts of the earlier 11th c. building have been incorporated in the present church ; in N[orth] Wall, pre-Conquest blocked-up doorway ; herring-bone work ; two shallow buttresses." Described in Whiteman (1994): "The font, a huge square block of Sussex marble with rusticated sides, bears the date 1662". The University of Kent, Library Services, Special Collections lists a "Black and white negative of a Church font (1661), Lurgashall, Sussex, taken on 15 April 1938 showing a church font" [ref.: UKC-RUR-MUG-BW.F223417].