Donhead St. Mary
Image copyright © Duncan & Mandy Ball, 2004
Standing permission
Results: 5 records
B01: design element - architectural - arcade - blind - round arches
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Duncan & Mandy Ball, 2004
Image Source: detail of a photograph taken August 2004 by Duncan & Mandy Ball, [www.oodwooc.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
BBU01: design element - motifs - interlace - 3-strand - braided
Scene Description: irregular; interrupted
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Duncan & Mandy Ball, 2004
Image Source: detail of a photograph taken August 2004 by Duncan & Mandy Ball, [www.oodwooc.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
BS01: design element - motifs - ball
Scene Description: a large one in each of the spandrels of the arcade
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Duncan & Mandy Ball, 2004
Image Source: detail of a photograph taken August 2004 by Duncan & Mandy Ball, [www.oodwooc.co.uk]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of font and cover
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Duncan & Mandy Ball, 2004
Image Source: photograph taken August 2004 by Duncan & Mandy Ball
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of church interior - nave - looking east
Scene Description: the font on the north side of the aisle, towards the west end
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Duncan & Mandy Ball, 2004
Image Source: photograph taken August 2004 by Duncan & Mandy Ball
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
INFORMATION
Font ID: 07303DON
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Century and Period/Style: 12th century, Norman
Cognate Fonts: [cf. FontNotes]
Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. Mary
Font Location in Church: Inside the church
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Mary the Virgin
Church Address: Church Hill, Donhead, Wiltshire, SP7 9DJ
Site Location: Wiltshire, South West, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located 3-4 km NE of Shaftesbury (access from the A30)
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Salisbury
Historical Region: Hundred of Dunworth
Font Notes:
Click to view
The Gentleman's Magazine (issue of Oct. 1861, p. 416) reports the visit on 22 August of the same year by the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society to both Donheads, St. Mary and St. Andrew, but it mentions only "the Anglo-Norman font" in St. Andrew's church. The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine (vol. VII, 1862) publishes the report of the 8th General Meeting of this Society, held at Shaftesbury between the 21st and 23rd of August 1861, in which it is recorded that same visit, but this report remarks on "the ancient font and the capitals and pillars" found in their inspection of t"the Church of Donhead St. Mary's". Described in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a "a cylindrical Norman example boldly arcaded", and that "it is figured in Hoare's Wilts." Holmes (1922) writes that this "church […] is […] mainly Norman and Early English with some sixteenth-century additions. The round font belongs to the older style. Buck (1950) classes this font in a Wiltshire group [Ditteridge, Biddestone, Tytherton Lucas, Staton St. Quintin, Winterbourne Monkton and Donhead St. Mary] defined as 'unmounted circular tub fonts' from the 'Middle Norman' period of ca. 1100-1150. Noted in Pevsner & Cherry (1975): "Font. Norman, circular, with arcading and a top band of interlace." The Victoria County History (Wiltshire, vol. 13, 1987) notes: "Donhead St. Mary church was standing in the 12th century. [...] church of St. Mary, so called in 1291 [...] A circular font with arcades survives from the 12th-century church."
Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Duncan & Mandy Ball, of www.oodwooc.co.uk, for their photographs of this church and font
COORDINATES
UTM: 30U 560745 5652284
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material: stone
Font Shape: tub-shaped
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: round
REFERENCES
- Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.
- Buck, A.G. Randle, "Some Wiltshire fonts. Part I", LIII, CXCIII (December 1950), The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 1950, pp. 458-470; p. 467
- Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907, p. 225, 227
- Cox, John Charles, Nottinghamshire, London: Allen, 1912, p. 222
- Holmes, Edric, Wanderings in Wessex: an Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter, London: Robert Scott Roxburghe House, [1922]