Selworthy / Selevrde

There is an entry for Selworthy [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SS9146/selworthy/] [accessed 9 September 2024]; it mentions neither priest nor church in it. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Norman period. Not mentioned in Pevsner (1958). The entry for this church in Historic England [Listing NGR: SS9198446806] notes: "Parish church. C14 lower stage of tower, rest Perpendicular, south aisle dated 1538, 1875 restoration [...] Norman font with tall C19 cover and pulley." Listed and illustrated in the CRSBI [https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=973] [accessed 9 September 2024]: "Located at W end of S aisle, near the S door. The font is carved in a beautiful yellowish stone (paler than Hamstone) and is in very good condition. The square plinth is pleasingly substantial. The base has a chamfered ring. The stem is a simple cylinder. Between it and the bowl there is a very strong torus, which enhances the grandeur of the bowl’s shape and balances its everted lip. The handsome bowl is enhanced by the finish of the surface, having been (somewhat unusually) tooled horizontally. The tooling marks are fine and regular. There is good lead up to and over much of the rim which is chamfered at the edge, but there is no evidence of previous lock-fittings. The internal sides drop straight to a dished bottom." [NB: the entry for this church in the CRSBI notes and illustrates another interesting object of the period, too small to be a font, probably a lavabo or piscina]. The font consists of a hemispherical basin curving slightly to a protruding upper rim; the underbowl ends in a moulding where is joins the cylindrical pedestal base. The wooden cover has a crown-like octagonal base with a trellised rim, while the upper section tapers towards the finial in a slightly concave curve. The font cover which still retains its old pulley system; the counterweight is a large bird [eagle?] in flight [NB: a recent (10 February 2008) photograph of this object by 'cupra' can be found in Flickr [http://www.flickr.com/photos/treetops_photos/2255857412/] [accessed 18 March 2008] -- the font and cover are partially seen in a 7 Decembre 2005 photograph by Phil Draper in http://churchcrawler.blogspot.com/2005/12/churches-of-exmoor-6.html [accessed 18 March 2008]