Bristol No. 4 / Whitchurch

Drawing of a font in the Harvey Pridham Drawings of English Fonts (MS 56). [Folder Number, Item Description]. University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries. Special Collections Dept., done by Harvey Pridham in September 1887 accompanied by the following description: "Square bowl outside, brought down by clitcon's[?] to the circular stem & moulding. The moulding under stem are circular also; the plinth being square. The inside of bowl is square also, no lead lining, sides nearly vertical; 3" margin, 9 3/8 deep: no cover. Position, on left (W.) side, entering by S. porch." Wade & Wade (1929) report a Norman font in this church [W&W also note a stoup outside the south door without mention of its date or period]. Not mentioned in Pevsner (1958). Described and illustrated in Sivier (2002) as a baptismal font of the Norman period; the basin is of the inverted-cushion-capital type; the sides appear plain; the base is cylindrical with mouldings at top and bottom, the lower base end square; it stands on a two-step plinth and has a modern cover. The entry for this church in Historic England [NGR: ST6122367592] notes: "Parish church. Late C12, altered C13 and early C14, and C15; restored C19" but mentions no font in it. The Romanesque font is is described and illustrated in the entry for this church in the CRSBI [https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=8726] [accessed 1 June 2025]: "The font is in the S aisle, just W of the S Portal. The basic design is like a simple Norman cushion capital - in this case, without adornment. The two-step plinth, of darker stone, is unusually high (accounting for the unusually high overall dimension of the font). The base has a roughly square shallow pedestal chamfered down at the angles. This supports a moulded base consisting of a roll below an unusually deeply set-back scotia (effectively two rolls separated by a wide hollow chamfer). The cylindrical stem is marked off at the top by a roll similar to that at the base. There is now no lead. Evidence of former lock-fittings can be seen on the top rim at N and S. The whole font is in good condition except that there have been replacements at the top of the bowl, including the whole top edge of the E face, and part of the top of the W face [...] The font was presumably moved to its present position (conventionally, at the NE angle of the SW part of the S aisle, just W of the S Portal) when the western part of the said aisle was built in 1862. Fonts of this large cushion-capital design are common in N Somerset."