Everingham / Engderingham

Gough (1792) notes: a very old font ornamented with Saxon carving and lately turned out of the church. Reported in Lewis (1831) as a noteworthy baptismal font "of ancient date and curious workmanship". Moule, writing ca. 1827, notes: "The ancient font, removed from the parish church, is placed in the gardens of this seat, it is of early Anglo-Norman workship ." Sheahan & Whellan (1857) note that ''an apothecary's mortar, embedded in one of the pillars, serves as a font'' in the church of the Blessed Virgin [which probably refers to the Roman Catholic Chapel of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin and St. Everildis, by the side of Eeveringham Hall]. Described and illustrated in Mann (1985) as a font from the old Norman church, later relegated to the porch of the Roman Catholic Chapel of the Virgin and St. Everilda. Mann (ibid.) suggests a date towards the late 11th century. Described in Pevsner & Neave (1995): "a Norman drum-shaped font with an unorganized representation of the Tree of Life with a horseman, four beasts and a bird. Also a tree with a bird and a man with a bow"; they give the location "In the porch, rather pushed away". [NB: P & N (ibid.) and Mann (ibid.), who suggests that "they may represent the Scandinavian myth of the Wolrd Ash tree, Yggdrasil", report that the old font was replaced by a new one dated to the early 20th century [1901 in P&N]]. Mann (ibid.) informs that "the back of the font is not carved, except for the moulding which runs around the upper edge", and speculates, among other possibilities, whether the font was never finished, and therefore its program remains incomplete, or it was simply meant to stand in a corner in which case "any carving on the back would be superfluous". The International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Show and the San Francisco Art & Antiques Fair of 2003 featured this font among the exhbits. A report by the Richard Philp Gallery (London, UK) (?) noted the following: "The centre piece of the exhibition at both of these fairs was our new acquisition: a[n] English romanesque font from Everigham parish church, East Riding, Yorkshire. This twelfth-century sculpture is remarkable: a drum-shaped font, fully-carved on three-quarters of its circumference, depicts animated scenes of animals, trees and cryptic symbolism. Its complex and intriguing iconography mixes the symbols of medieval pastoral care with that of lay imagery. Some of the subjects suggest both religious and secular meanings; for example, the two trees could represent the Tree of Knowledge (with the serpent) and the other might be associated with the group of animals, bowman and hunter -- a secular scene with loose reference to the hunt for salvation. The association with pagan imagery, moral tales and traditional font symbolism makes this piece a fine example of the sculptural ptrogrammes of English romanesque parish churches." This same source notes the local style of carving particular to a group of East Yorkshire fonts, such as the one from Hutton Cranswick [now at the York Museum]. The Richard Philp Gallery of London, England, informs that the font is now [November 2005] in a private collection in the United States. Studied and illustrated in Wood (2011), who describes it as "one of the most elaborate examples in a group of over fifty cylindrical fonts in the East Riding which date from the first hald of the twelfth century. Its apparently unorganised imagery is found to embody a teaching scheme reminiscent of metgods described in St Augustine of Hippo's manual for instructing baptism candidates, and the design seems to ba based on a text of Hugh of St Victor, from his moral interpretation of Noah's Ark." Wood (ibid.) compares its motifs to those on the font at Bessingby (East Riding), and on the timpana at Ribbesford (Worcestershire) and Stoke-sub-Hamdon (Somerset).