Coffinswell

Oliver (1840-2) writes of Coffinswell Chapel: "With the exception of an ancient Font, there is little here to arrest the attention of the antiquary". Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as having a baptismal font of the Early English period. Described in Stabb (1908-1916): "The font [...] is old with a circular bowl with a narrow border of carving round the top, and the rest of the bowl completely covered with carving, beneath the bowl there is a cable moulding, the plain shaft rests on a square base." Described and illustrated in Clarke (1915): "The bowl of this font in dimensions and ornament closely resembles that of Buckland-in-the-Moor", and suggests that, perhaps, it may have been originally an unmounted tub-font recut to the present form, especially since the upper block of stone reaches only a few inches below the centre ring moulding, the upper stone being Caen and the extension, perhaps added later, "probably Ham Hill stone". Clarke informs that "below the rim of the bowl is a band of Norman star ornament; on both north and south sides the rim was broken by the staples of the cover, and the star ornament also. The damaged portions have been repaired by inserting new stone" [a total of two hundred square cm of new stone]. The main part of the basin sides is decorated "with palmetto in panels formed by the curved stems, and pointed trefoils filling the top spaces [i.e., the spandrels] in between", Clarke again, with "a band of plantain-leaf ornament, graduated in height, so as to accommodate itself to the irregular space. A broad cable twist unites bowl and shaft." Noted in Pevsner (1952): "Font. Norman, circular with palmettes and a band of crosses saltire above and of cable below (same type at Combeinteignhead nearby).