Birstall No. 2

There is no individual entry for this Birstall in the Domesday survey. Noted by Glynne in his 2 December 1858 visit (in Butler, 2007): "The font is a new one in Perpendicular style" [NB: the discovery of the fragments of the older font had not yet occurred]. Cradock (1933) writes: "The Octagonal Font belongs to this period [i.e., beginning of the 16th century]. The bowl was thrown over about 1770 and used as a depository for rubbish under the Tower. In 1840 the bowl was replaced on its pedestal and the Font completely restored and carved by a boy named Alfred Bromley, son of the Parish Clerk, at the age of 12. On the edges of the bowl he carved the old Greek anagram: "ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ"', which reads exactly the same if the letters are reversed ('Wash away my sin, [wash] not my face only'). Underneath the bowl is this inscription: 'HOC LAVACRUM, OLIM DE SEDE SUA GEJECTUM ET ANNORUM FERE SITU FOEDATUM, NUNC NOVIS CELATURIS ORNATUM, ET IN PRISCAM RELIGIONEM RESTITUTUM EST ANNO SACRO MDDCCCXL.' ('This Laver, long since thrown down from its pedestal and defiled with the dirt of well-nigh 70 years, has now been adorned with new carvings, and restored to its ancient pious use in the sacred year 1840.') It was not actually used again till April 6th, 1841, when a brief notice of its history occurs in the Register: The first child baptised in it was the daughter of the Churchwarden, Charles Firth, solicitor, of Bova Cottage, and the second person (on the same day) was George Bromley himself, the Parish Clerk, who had previously been Schoolmaster, and was 43 years old. He had been somewhat of a free thinker in his early years, being influenced by the writings of Tom Payne [... Being uncertain of his baptism, he was conditionally baptised." Morris (1932) notes the Latin inscription, a variant transcription from Cradock's: "HOC LAVATRUM OLIM DE SEDE SUA DEJECTUM NOVIS COELATURIS ORNATUM ET IN PRISCAM RELIGIONEM RESTITUTUM EST ANNO SACRO MDCCCXL." Noted in Harman & Pevsner (2017): "Octagonal, Perp, with much decoration, heavily restored 1840."