Norham / Norhamshire

Hutchinson (1823) writes: "The late vicar, the Rev. Robert Lambe, in levelling the ruins of walls in the church-yard, discovered a sculpture, which, we apprehend, was the ornament of an ancient font." Mackenzie (1825) cites Hutchinson and adds: "There are represented on this stone three personages; in the upper compartments, St. Peter with his keys, in the lower, St. Cuthbert and St. Ceolwulf, with his sceptre; on a fillet which divides these figures is an inscription beginning I.H.Z. but the other characters are so defaced , as to baffle the attempts of the most patient antiquary to decypher them." Wilson (1870) reports a modern font at his time, "the gift of the Rev. John Edmunds". Kelly's Directory of Durham and Northumberland (1890) has: "the octagonal stone font, supported on four columns, was the gift of the Rev. John Edmunds." Reported modern font lid in http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~agene/norhamch.htm [NB: early church ca. 840 -- rebuilt ca. 1180 -- the sculpture found ca. 1800 (?), if its attribution is right, may have belonged to one of the earlier fonts -- the font noted in Kelly (1890) was probably the one installed in the Victorian renovation of this church -- we have no information on the earlier fonts of this church]