Sutton Coldfield nr. Birmingham / Sutone

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Results: 13 records

Click to view images and/or subjects

BH01: human figure - grotesque or fantastic - head

Image Source: B&W photograph by Harry Dodenham in the CRSBI [www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol4/pp230-245] [accessed 17 December 2014]

Copyright Instructions: PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE -- IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE

BH02: human figure - grotesque or fantastic - head

Image Source: B&W photograph by Harry Dodenham in the CRSBI [www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol4/pp230-245] [accessed 17 December 2014]

Copyright Instructions: PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE -- IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE

BH03: human figure - grotesque or fantastic - head

Image Source: B&W photograph by Harry Dodenham in the CRSBI [www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol4/pp230-245] [accessed 17 December 2014]

Copyright Instructions: PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE -- IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE

BH04: human figure - grotesque or fantastic - head

Scene Description: seen here on the right side

Image Source: detail of a digital photograph taken 18 May 2012 by Aidan McRae Thomson [http://warwickshirechurches.weebly.com/sutton-coldfield---holy-trinity.html] [accessed 17 December 2014]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

design element - architectural - arcade - blind - round arches - intersecting arches - beaded-tape motif - columns with capiatls and bases

Scene Description: the beaded pattern is very eroded in most of the arch-heads

Image Source: detail of a digital photograph taken 18 May 2012 by Aidan McRae Thomson [http://warwickshirechurches.weebly.com/sutton-coldfield---holy-trinity.html] [accessed 17 December 2014]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

design element - motifs - sawtooth

Scene Description: in the areas between the protruding heads

Image Source: detail of a digital photograph taken 18 May 2012 by Aidan McRae Thomson [http://warwickshirechurches.weebly.com/sutton-coldfield---holy-trinity.html] [accessed 17 December 2014]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

design element - motifs - vine

Scene Description: runs through the mouths of the protruding heads and has foliage motifs in the spaces between the heads

Image Source: detail of a digital photograph taken 18 May 2012 by Aidan McRae Thomson [http://warwickshirechurches.weebly.com/sutton-coldfield---holy-trinity.html] [accessed 17 December 2014]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

design element - patterns - beaded-tape

Scene Description: on the tendrils of the vine; very faint in some areas, almost totally eroded

Image Source: B&W photograph by Harry Dodenham in the CRSBI [www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol4/pp230-245] [accessed 17 December 2014]

Copyright Instructions: PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE -- IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE

view of church exterior - northwest view

Image Source: digital photograph taken 18 May 2012 by Aidan McRae Thomson [http://warwickshirechurches.weebly.com/sutton-coldfield---holy-trinity.html] [accessed 17 December 2014]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of church interior - nave - looking east

Image Source: digital photograph taken 18 May 2012 by Aidan McRae Thomson [http://warwickshirechurches.weebly.com/sutton-coldfield---holy-trinity.html] [accessed 17 December 2014]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of font

Image Source: B&W photograph by Harry Dodenham in the CRSBI [www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol4/pp230-245] [accessed 17 December 2014]

Copyright Instructions: PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE -- IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE

view of font and cover

Image Source: digital photograph taken 18 May 2012 by Aidan McRae Thomson [http://warwickshirechurches.weebly.com/sutton-coldfield---holy-trinity.html] [accessed 17 December 2014]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

view of font and cover - northwest side

Image Source: digital photograph taken 18 May 2012 by Aidan McRae Thomson [http://warwickshirechurches.weebly.com/sutton-coldfield---holy-trinity.html] [accessed 17 December 2014]

Copyright Instructions: Standing permission

INFORMATION

FontID: 07283SUT

Church/Chapel: Church of the Holy Trinity [originally from the church at Over Whiteacre]

Church Patron Saints: The Holy Trinity

Church Location: Church Hill, Mill St, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, B72 1SD

Country Name: England

Location: Warwickshire, West Midlands

Directions to Site: Sutton Coldfield ia located 11-12 km NE of Birmingham (Over Whiteacre is located 14 km E of Sutton C.)

Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Birmingham

Historical Region: Hundred of Coleshill [in Domesday] -- Hundred of Hemlingford

Font Location in Church: Inside the church, in the W end

Century and Period: 11th - 12th century [basin only], Medieval / composite

Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Aidan McRae Thomson, of Warwickshire Churches [http://warwickshirechurches.weebly.com], for his photographs of this church and font

Font Notes: Click to view font notes

There is an entry for Sutton [Coldfield] [variant spelling] in the Domesday Survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SP1296/sutton-coldfield/] [accessed 17 December 2014], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. A noteworthy baptismal font of the Norman period is listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) in Sutton, Warwickshire. English Heritage [Listing NGR: SP1218496279] (1949) notes: "Interlaced aroaded circular Norman font, removed C19 from Church of St Lawrence, Over Winacre, Nottinghamshire." The Victoria County History (Warwick, vol. 4, 1947) notes: "The church is of early-13th-century origin, but the only identifiable detail in the masonry is in the lower part of the east wall of the chancel [...] The font has a circular slightly cup-shaped bowl of the 12th century. The lower half is faced with an interlacing arcade in low relief. At the top are four prominently projecting grotesque heads with straps in their mouths issuing at the sides and meeting each side in pairs of leaves. The top edge has indent ornament. The font belonged to the church of Over Whitacre and was turned out when that church was rebuilt in the 18th century. After being degraded to various uses it was recovered in 1856 and presented to Sutton Coldfield." Catalogued and illustrated in the CRSBI (2014), where it is identified as the original font made of red sandstone from the church at Over Whiteacre, a town 14 km east of Sutton Coldfield. The CRSBI (ibid.) also remarks on the presence of a white marble circular bowl, "probably inserted in the mid-19thc." The font appears tub-shaped, with a saw-tooth motif all around the upper rim, except where the four ornamental heads protrude; these are typically Norman, with dotted-tape motif bands that go from their mouths to form a foliage motif; lower down the sides there is a blind arcade of intersecting arches rasied on full columns, the arches themselves also in dotted-tape pattern. The base is a round pedestal and the whole is raised on an octagonal plinth with "kneeling stone" extension on one of the sides. The entry for Over Whitacre in William Dargue's A History of Birmingham Churches . . . from A to Y [http://ahistoryofbirminghamchurches.jimdo.com/parishes-in-the-diocese-of-birmingham-outside-the-city/coleshill-st-peter-st-paul/over-whitacre-st-leonard/] [accessed 17 December 2014] notes: "Although no evidence of this early church building survives above ground, an item of the old church’s furniture is now to be found in Holy Trinity church at Sutton Coldfield. The 12th-century stone font from Over Whitacre was thrown out when the church was rebuilt in 1766. It was certainly thought of as crude and inappropriate in a neo-classical building. The font was taken to a local pub, either the nearby Owl Inn (now gone) or downhill to the Bull at Furnace End. There it was used as a mounting block for 90 years, but it was rediscovered in 1856 and presented to Holy Trinity. Made of local sandstone, the bowl of the font is decorated on the lower half with an arcade of intersecting Norman arches. The top half has four large heads which projecting prominently from each side of the bowl. Carved in the green man tradition these grotesque heads have large staring eyes and from the sides of their mouths straps curve downwards and then up to meet between the heads in pairs of leaves."

COORDINATES

Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal: 52.563854, -1.820148

Church Latitude & Longitude DMS: 52° 33′ 49.87″ N, 1° 49′ 12.53″ W

UTM: 30U 579974 5824409

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone, sandstone (red)

Number of Pieces: two

Font Shape: tub-shaped (mounted)

Basin Interior Shape: round

Basin Exterior Shape: round

Rim Thickness: 5.5 cm [calculated]

Diameter (inside rim): 52 cm*

Diameter (includes rim): 63 cm* [54 cm* at bottom]

Basin Total Height: 52 cm*

Trapezoidal Basin: 85 x 85 cm* [including heads]

Notes on Measurements: * CRSBI (2015)

LID INFORMATION

Date: modern

Material: wood, oak?

Apparatus: no

Notes: round and flat, with metal decoration and fleur-de-lis finial

REFERENCES

Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. Accessed: 2014-12-17 00:00:00. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.

Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland. Accessed: 2002-12-16 00:00:00. URL: http://www.crsbi.ac.uk.

Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907