Overmonnow No. 1 / Monmouth / Over Monnow / Trefynwy

Kelly's 1901 directory of Monmouthshire records that "a very ancient font font lies in the baptistery" [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~familyalbum/kmon.1htm] [accessed 7 December 2006]. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Norman period. Peter Lord, in Diwylliant... (1998-2003), dates this font to the 12th century and informs that St. Thomas may not have been the original location of this font; he suggests instead Monmouth priory across the river. Lord (ibid.) refers to Richard Colt Hoare's engraving of the interior at St. Thomas' that appeared in William Coxe's An Historical Tour of Monmouthshire (London, 1801) [ill. facing p. 299, vol. II]; in that illustration appears a font that is not the present font, but a plain one mounted on a simpler base [the original St. Thomas' font may have therefore disappeared since the 1835 restoration -- cf. BSI entry for Overmonnow No. 3 for the 15th-century font]]. The present font, the one dated as Norman in Cox & Harvey, and to the 12th-century by Lord, consists of a roughly hemispherical basin decorated with a roll moulding at the upper rim, and with foliage, an animal, more like a bird {peacock?] that a snake and a human head on the sides {"an unhappy Eve, tempted by a serpent whose sinister intentions are expressed with remarkable economy in a single, malicious eye", according to Lord]; raised on a slender round stem decorated with a trellis of beaded tape, the lower base consisting of three mouldings, the upper one of which has ball-in-socket ornamentation; plain small square plinth. Lord (ibid.) raises doubts as to whether or not the base and the bowl belong together. Handscome (1979 rev. 1992) in the web site of The Church in Wales, Diocese of Monmouth [www.churchinwales.org.uk/monmouth/m543/6.html] [accessed 7 December 2006] reports two fonts in this church but describes only one of them, the figured font dated in Lord as 12th-century. Handscome (ibid.) suggests that the decoration on the basin sides "is probably a Garden of Eden scene" and the font itself "is not of great antiquity". Thurlby (2006) notes: "In terms of the style of the mask on the bowl the Herefordshire analogy [suggested by Lord] is apprpriate but that it dates from the twelfth century is doubtful [...] The form of the font, with the small bowl on a relatively tall, decorated stem and ornamented base, is quite unlike other twelfth-century work, and the sharpness of the carving seems to preclude over eight hundred years of use. It is surely a product of the nineteenth century." [NB: the National Gazetteer of 1868 describes St Thomas' as being "in a ruinous condition, but was restored and fitted up for Divine service in 1830 at the joint expense of the Duke of Beaufort and the parishoners"; if the font is not ancient it may then date from the 1830 restoration]. The entry for this church in CADW [https://cadwpublic-api.azurewebsites.net/reports/listedbuilding/FullReport?lang=en&id=2214] [accessed 11 August 2024] notes: "Two fonts, a plain C15 one in the baptistery and a disused one with C19 interlace stem and charming possibly recut Romanesque bowl."