Little Maplestead / Little Maplested / Little Mapplested
Results: 9 records
B01: design element - motifs - scroll
![on the south and east sides of the square basin [now 'octagonal']](/static-50478a99ec6f36a15d6234548c59f63da52304e5/compressed/1060212007_compressed.png)
Scene Description: on the south and east sides of the square basin [now 'octagonal']
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Whitworth, 2006
Image Source: digital photograph in www.exxeschurches.co.uk
Copyright Instructions: used in accordance to author's stated directions
view of font and cover
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Whitworth, 2006
Image Source: digital photograph in www.exxeschurches.co.uk
Copyright Instructions: used in accordance to author's stated directions
view of font and cover in context
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Whitworth, 2006
Image Source: digital photograph in www.exxeschurches.co.uk
Copyright Instructions: used in accordance to author's stated directions
view of church exterior
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Whitworth, 2006
Image Source: digital photograph in www.exxeschurches.co.uk
Copyright Instructions: used in accordance to author's stated directions
view of font in context
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Broads Marsham, 2009
Image Source: digital photograph taken 28 October 2009 by Broads Marshman [http://www.flickr.com/photos/broadsmarshman/4315817126/] [accessed 8 July 2010]
Copyright Instructions: PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE -- IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE
view of basin - detail
Scene Description: the old basin on the new platfrom made especially to match its re-cut shape
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Broads Marsham, 2009
Image Source: detail of a digital photograph taken 28 October 2009 by Broads Marshman [http://www.flickr.com/photos/broadsmarshman/4315817126/] [accessed 8 July 2010]
Copyright Instructions: PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE -- IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE
INFORMATION
Font ID: 11495MAP
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Century and Period/Style: 11th - 12th century [basin only] [altered], Medieval / composite
Cognate Fonts: [cf. FontNotes]
Church / Chapel Name: Church of St. John the Baptist
Font Location in Church: Inside the church, in the nave
Church Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1742913
Church Patron Saint(s): St. John the Baptist
Site Location: Essex, East, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located near Gt. Mapplestead, off the A131, 3 km N of Halstead, SW of Sudbury
Additional Comments: recycled font / recut: square-to-octagonal to follow the later fashion
Font Notes:
Click to view
Noted in Gough (1792). Poole (1842) refers to some early fonts "which are little more than large stones, scarcely reduced to any definite shape, except near the top, and then hollowed sufficiently for the purpose for which they are designed. Among these may be mentioned the font of Little Mapplested [...] and that at Heron Gate, in Essex." [NB: Poole (ibid.) footnotes his entry to the 'Antiquarian Itinerary', vol. vii]. Noted in the Royal Commission of Historical Monuments (Essex, 1916-1923): "The oldest font in North-west Essex [...] Roough bowl, originally square, of limestone, with two round-headed arches on one face, remains of scrolled volute on two faces, and cross on one face, probably 11th-century; angles cut away to form a rough octagon." Paul (1986) writes: "Monopod. Probably from earlier church. Square bowl with chamfered angles. Norman, c1080. Decoration: The deep bowl was originally square, but probably in the fifteenth century the corners were removed[...] The carving is rather crude, the south and east faces having two roughly carved scrolled volutes. The north face has two round-headed arches in low relief and the west face is a rather antiquated form of St Andrew's cross. The bowl is mounted on a much later octagonal base which is hollow-chamfered to the pedestal which is also octagonal [...] The font originally stood against the south-west pier of the nave arcade but was probably removed to its present position during the 1851-57 restoration. Cover: The cover is a flat wooden irregular octagon with iron ring handle. Modern." Noted in Pevsner (1976): "Font. Square with chamfered angles. Very raw decoration -- a saltire cross, two arches, a composition of two volutes -- it may well be C11." Fitch (1996) suggests that "the font is older than the church, possibly Saxon, and must have come from an earlier church." Bettley & Pevsner (2007) reiterated the C11 date.
Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to John Whitworth, of www.essexchurches.co.uk, for his information and references on this font, and for the photographs of font and church.
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material: stone
Font Shape: square [re-cut to octagonal] (mounted)
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: square [re-cut to octagonal]
LID INFORMATION
Date: modern
Material: wood
Apparatus: no
Notes: plain and flat, with metal ring handle
REFERENCES
- Bettley, James, Essex, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007, p. 558
- Friends of Essex Churches, Essex churches and chapels: a select guide, Stamford: Paul Watkins Publishing, 1996
- Gough, Richard, "Description of the old font in the Church of East Meon, Hampshire, 1789: with some observations on fonts", X, Archaeologia, 1792, pp. 183-209; p. 188
- Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, An Inventory of the historical monuments in Essex, London: H.M. Stationary Office, 1916-1923, vol. 1: xxx, 184
- Paul, W. Norman, Essex Fonts and Font Covers: Norman to Nineteenth Century, Baldock, Herts.: Egon Publishers, 1986
- Pevsner, Nikolaus, Essex, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976, p. 33, 282
- Poole, George Ayliffe, The Appropriate Character of Church Architecture, Leeds; London: T.W. Green; Rivington, Burns, and Houlston and Stoneman, 1842, p. 63
- Pugin, Augustus Northmore Welby, The Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture in England, London: Charles Dolman, 1843, p. 68