Hemyock / Hemiock

White's 'Devonshire' of 1878 reported: "in the church is a Saxon font, of Purbeck stone." [source: transcription of White's entry in www.uk-genealogy.org.uk]. A more realistic description is the local parish guide which describes it as "basically from 1200" although with a mixed history. Stabb (1908) notes: "an old Norman font, having an old bowl on a new base; it does not rank amongst the best specimens of its class". Clarke (1922) writes about the restoration of the outer colonnettes of the base: "at Hemyock the capitals are a hybrid design, suggesting the Egyptian lotus capital more than anything else." Noted in Pevsner (1952): "Font. Norman, square with rows of small roundhead blank arcades (a type more usual in Cornwall)." Brian Clist [http://hemyock.org/index.php?topic=Smary] [accessed 10 February 2009] writes: "The church has had its dedication changed several times. In the 1400’s it was St Mary’s, after the reformation St. George was the patron saint, by the mid 1700’s it was St. Peter’s and it reverted to St. Mary’s in the 1760’s. Inside the building, the bowl of the font dates back to 1200.