Towednack / Tewuunek

Image copyright © Steve Beazley, 2005
Standing permission to reproduce
Results: 3 records
LB01: design element - motifs - zigzag
INFORMATION
FontID: 10961TOW
Church/Chapel: Parish Church of St. Tewennochus
Church Patron Saints: St. Tewennochus [aka Tewennoc, Tewennock, Towednack] [or is it St. Winwaloe, as suggested by O.J. Padel?]
Country Name: England
Location: Cornwall, South West
Directions to Site: Located 4 km SW of St. Ives, W of Lelant, 10 km NE of Penzance
Font Location in Church: Inside the church, W end, S side, by the door
Century and Period: 11th - 12th century [shafts and base only], Medieval / composite
Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Steve Beazley, of RootsWeb.com, for his image of this font.
Font Notes: Click to view font notes
Kelly's Directory of 1873 reports: "a curiously carved font, which bears the date 1720". Cox (1912) writes: "Masonry of N[orth] side of nave Norm[an]; shafts and base of font are of that period, but octagonal bowl is dated 1720." [NB: the shafts mentioned in Cox perhaps removed since?]. Noted in Pevsner (1970): "Font. Granite, octagonal, with faces at the corners, dated 1720. Its base is the inverted bowl of a Norman font." The composite baptismal font consists of an octagonal decorated with faces at the corners, vertical sides and a rounded underbowl; the base looks now like a plain cylindrical stem that splays out to a bell-shaped lower base decorated with zigzag at the top, but, as indicated by Pevsner, it is really the old Norman font turned upside-down; the zigzag is therefore the decoration of the underbowl of the old basin. The font has a flat octagonal cover with a knob handle/finial, and it is raised on a quadrangular plinth.
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material:
stone, granite [basin only?]
Font Shape: octagonal (mounted) [cf. FontNotes]
Basin Interior Shape: round [cf. FontNotes]
Basin Exterior Shape: octagonal [cf. FontNotes]
LID INFORMATION
Date: modern
Material:
wood,
Apparatus: no
Notes: [cf. FontNotes]
REFERENCES
Cox, John Charles, Cornwall, London: George Allen & Company, 1912
Kelly, Kelly's Directory of Cornwall, London: Kelly's Directories Ltd., 1873
Pevsner, Nikolaus, Cornwall, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970