Atcham / Atingeham / Attingham / Ettingham

Results: 1 records

INFORMATION

Font ID: 06366ATC
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Date: 1675?
Font Century and Period/Style: 11th century [re-carved?] / 17th century(late)?, Norman [altered?] / Post-Reformation?
Cognate Fonts: It "resembles the Norman font at West Thorney in Sussex"
Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. Eata
Font Location in Church: Inside the church
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Eata [aka Eata of Hexham, Eata of Lindisfarne]
Site Location: Shropshire, West Midlands, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located on the B4380, 4-5 km SE of Shrewsbury
Additional Comments: re-carved font? -- famous person font? Ordericus Vitalis (1075-ca. 1142), English chronicler author of 'Historia Ecclesiastica' may have been baptised in this font, or in its predecessor
Font Notes:
Anderson (1864) writes: "Atcham church is not alluded to in the Domesday notice of the manor, yet it certainly was existent when William the Conqueror's commissioners made their report, for, on April 5, 1075, ten years before Domesday was compiled, Ordericus Vitalis, the celebrated monkish historian, was baptized in it. 'I was born', says he, "on the 14th of the calends of March (Feb. 16), and was regenerated in the holy font of baptism by the ministry of Ordericus, the priest, at Attingham, in the church of St Eata, the Confessor, which stands on the bank of the river Severn.' In another place, this celebrated Anglo Norman monk, says, 'I was baptized on the Saturday of Easter at Attingham, a village in England'". Noted in Timmins (1899): "The font is curious, being fashioned from a Roman capital". Described in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as "a font made after an early pattern [...] which resembles the Norman font at West Thorney in Sussex"; this same source (ibid.) reports an inscription on the font containing the date of 1675 and a set of initials believed to correspond to the then churchwardens. In Newman & Pevsner (2006): "Plain, octagonal, dated 1675". [NB: is it possible that the font bearing the date '1675', is the old 11th-century one re-carved?]

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone
Font Shape: tub-shaped

INSCRIPTION

Inscription Language: numbers and letters
Inscription Text: "1675 / IS WP / C W"
Inscription Notes: The letters may be the initials of the churchwardens of the time
Inscription Source: Tyrrell-Green (1928: 155)

REFERENCES

  • Anderson, John Corbet, Shropshire, its early history and antiquities, comprising […], London: Willis and Sotheran, 1864, p. 164
  • Newman, John, Shropshire, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006, p. 125
  • Timmins, H. Thornhill, Nooks and corners of Shropshire, London: Elliot Stock, 1899, p. 149
  • Tyrrell-Green, E., Baptismal Fonts Classified and Illustrated, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge: The Macmillan Co., 1928, p. 44, 155