Horsham nr. Crawley

No entry for this Horsham found in the Domesday survey. A baptismal font here is noted and illustrated in Dudley (1836): "The font constructed of Sussex marble, is octagonal, and handsomely sculptured: date 1455." Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Perpendicular period. Harrison reports a Perpendicular font in this church. The Victoria County History (Sussex, vol. 6, pt. 2, 1986) notes: "original church, built c. 1150, [...] large tower, with a Norman doorway but later windows, survives. [...] 15th-century font of Sussex marble." Described in Whiteman (1994): "The Perpendicular octagonal font is carved with a Tudor rose design". An old print [origin unknown] reproduced in Hidden Horsham [www.hiddenhorsham.co.uk/images/hh/hd/stmarys10.jpg] [accessed 5 August 2010] shows an octagonal font with decorated panels on the basin and stem; the underbowl has a plain chamfer and the lower base has graded moulding on the upper part. The decoration is rendered very sketchyly in the old print, and it probably represents a tracery pattern of quatrefoils and cross-shaped trefolils. A font cover of apparent 17th-century design is included in the print, a round open base with eight scrolled ribs around a ventral pivot issuing from it and joining at the finial; at the point where the ribs join the base of the cover are cherub heads; it shows a crude pulley, which would probably indicate the use of a counterweight to raise the cover. The base of the font may be a 19th-century replacement.