Lound nr. Retford

Although identified in Addison [cf. below] as the original bowl of the baptismal font at Austerfield in which Pilgrim father William Bradford is said to have been baptised, this is more likely a medieval mortar of domestic or farm origin, typical with its egg-shaped basin marked with four knobs at 90-degree angles in the upper rim. A convoluted of this font story is told in Addison (1911: 184-197) that claims that this is the original Norman bowl which the sexton at Austerfield church, "one Milner", had sold to John Jackson, a local farmer; when Jackson sold his farm to a Mr. Fielding [this same source mentions an auctionneers' record of a "Garden--Stone baptismal font (formerly in Austerfield Parish Church)] the new owner gave the font to his mother who, "in turn handed it over to the trustees of the [Primitive Methodist] chapel at Lound, where it still remains jelously garded in the incongruous surroundings of its alien home". Addison (ibid.) infors that all attempts to have the said bowl returned to Austerfield have failed. Addison (ibid., p. 185) illustrates both objects: the present font is Austerfield and the original bowl now in Lound, in nearby Nottinghamshire. Unless the captions under the photographs have been reversed, the denizens of Austerfield need not worry about their font: the object in the chapel at Lound is most unlikely as a Norman font, and a more likely candidate to have been a large mortar or other such farm/domestic implement, whereas the one which Addison claims is Milner's trough is probably the original Norman bowl. Whatever it was that Milner sold away, it was not a baptismal font. This contrived story would be of little interest were it not for the fact that William Bradford, one of the Pilgrim fathers, is said to have been baptised in the Austerfield font. [cf. Index entry for Austerfield {South Yorkshire) for the baptismal font]