Tilshead

Image copyright © Buck, 1950
PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE -- IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE
Results: 7 records
B01: design element - patterns - ribbed
BBL01: design element - motifs - rope moulding
BBU01: design element - motifs - chevron
view of church exterior - north porch
view of church exterior - northeast view
view of font and cover
INFORMATION
FontID: 07325TIL
Church/Chapel: Parish Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury [aka St. Tomas a Becket]
Church Patron Saints: St. Thomas of Canterbury [aka St. Thomas a Becket]
Church Location: High Street, Tilshead, Wiltshire SP3 4SB
Country Name: England
Location: Wiltshire, South West
Directions to Site: Located on the A360, in the middle of the Salisbury Plain, 13 km WNW of Amesbury
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Salisbury
Historical Region: Hundred of Branch and Dole
Font Location in Church: Inside the church, in the N aisle
Date: ca. 1100?
Century and Period: 12th century (early?), Norman
Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to John Wilkes, of www.allthecotswolds.com, for the photograph of this font.
Church Notes: "A tradition that the early invocation of Tilshead church was of St. James is unsupported by evidence beyond the holding in the early 20th century of a feast or fair on or about St. James's day, 25 July. (fn. 281) A suggestion that the invocation was altered to ST. THOMAS A BECKET when the church was given to Ivychurch priory receives some support from the tradition that the saint was connected with the priory. (fn. 282) The dedication is first recorded in 1763." [cf. VCH entry in bib.]
Font Notes: Click to view font notes
Classed in Buck (1950) as one of a group of "Middle Norman circular Fonts, c. 1100-1150" in Wiltshire. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Norman period. Noted in Pevsner & Cherry (1975): "Font. Circular, Norman, fluted, with bands with diagonal incisions above and below." The Victoria County History (Wiltshire, vol. 15, 1995) notes: "There was a church at Tilshead in the early 12th century. [...] A rector was recorded c. 1170. [...] The nave arcades and the responds of the tower arches are early 12th-century. [...] Registers of baptisms [...] survive from 1664." There is no mention of a font in the VCH entry for this parish. The present font consists of a roughly cylindrical basin decorated with three bands of different motifs: the upper basin side has a wide band of chevron all around; below it, an even wider band of rib pattern, and, at the lower rim, a rope motif; plain conical chamfer on the underbowl; a very short stem of the base, plain and round, rests directly on a square lower base, equally plain. The flat wooden font cover is octagonal-on-round and has a knob handle.
COORDINATES
UTM: 30U 573307 5676297
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material:
stone
Number of Pieces: two?
Font Shape: cylindrical (mounted)
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: round
LID INFORMATION
Date: modern
Material:
wood,
Apparatus: no
REFERENCES
Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. Accessed: 2012-02-22 00:00:00. 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; r["References"]
Cox, John Charles, English Church Furniture, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1907
Cox, John Charles, Nottinghamshire, London: Allen, 1912