Gestingthorpe No. 1 / Ghestingethorp / Ghestingetorp
Results: 6 records
B01: Apostle or saint - Evangelists - symbol - 3
![one blank [cf Font notes]](/static-50478a99ec6f36a15d6234548c59f63da52304e5/compressed/1060514034_compressed.png)
Scene Description: one blank [cf Font notes]
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © H.M.S.O., 1923
Image Source: B&W photograph in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (Essex, 1916-1923)
Copyright Instructions: PD
B02: symbol - shield - rose
Scene Description: [cf. Font notes]
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © H.M.S.O., 1923
Image Source: B&W photograph in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (Essex, 1916-1923)
Copyright Instructions: PD
LB01: design element - motifs - tracery
Scene Description: [cf. Font notes]
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © H.M.S.O., 1923
Image Source: B&W photograph in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (Essex, 1916-1923)
Copyright Instructions: PD
LB02: design element - motifs - moulding
Scene Description: [cf. Font notes]
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © H.M.S.O., 1923
Image Source: B&W photograph in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (Essex, 1916-1923)
Copyright Instructions: PD
view of font
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © H.M.S.O., 1923
Image Source: B&W photograph in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (Essex, 1916-1923)
Copyright Instructions: PD
INFORMATION
Font ID: 11646GES
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Century and Period/Style: 15th century, Perpendicular
Workshop/Group/Artisan: Evangelists' font / heraldic font
Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. Mary, Gestingthorpe
Font Location in Church: Inside the church
Church Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17535866
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Mary the Virgin
Church Address: Church St, Halstead CO9 3BB, United Kingdom -- Tel.: +44 1787 460273
Site Location: Essex, East, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located off the B1058, 4 km NE of Castle-Hedingham, approximately halfway between Halstead(Essex) and Sudbury (Suffolk)
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Chalmsford
Historical Region: Hundred of Hinckford [in Domesday]
Font Notes:
Click to view
There are two entries for Gestingthorpe [variant spellings] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/TL8138/gestingthorpe/] [accessed 23 June 2025], neither of which reports a priest or church in it. Reported in Lewis' Dictionary of 1848 simply as "a curious font" [a standard qualifier Lewis uses for fonts with complex or busy ornamentation]. Noted with an illustration in the Royal Commission of Historical Monuments (Essex, 1916-1923) as one of the best 15th-century fonts in the county: "octagonal bowl, three sides carved with the symbols of three evangelists, one blank, the rest cusped, and enclosing roses or blank shields; traceried stem with moulded and carved base, 15th-century." In Pevsner (1976) and in Bettley & Pevsner (2007): "Font. Octagonal, Perp[endicular], with traceried stem and a bowl decorated by shields and symbols of the four Evangelists."
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material: stone
Font Shape: octagonal, mounted
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: octagonal
REFERENCES
- Bettley, James, Essex, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007, p. 377
- 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, 100 and pl. opp. p. xxix
- Lewis, Samuel, A Topographical Dictionary of England, Comprising the Several Counties, Cities, Boroughs, Corporate and Market Towns, Parishes, Chapelries, and Townships, and the Islands of Guernsy, Jersey, and Man, with Historical and Statistical Descriptions [...], London: S. Lewis, 1831, [www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=50979] [accessed 6 February 2007]
- Pevsner, Nikolaus, Essex, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976, p. 187