Moreton nr. Chipping Ongar / Mortuna [Domesday] (Essex)

Results: 7 records
design element - architectural - arcade - blind - round arches - 4
design element - motifs - spiral
symbol - floral - fleur-de-lis - 4
symbol - moon - crescent
symbol - sun
view of church exterior - southeast view
view of church interior - nave - looking east
INFORMATION
FontID: 11698MOR
Church/Chapel: Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin
Church Patron Saints: St. Mary the Virgin
Church Location: Church Road, Moreton, Essex, CM5 0JB, United Kingdom
Country Name: England
Location: Essex, East
Directions to Site: Located N of the A414 [aka Epping Rf / Chelmsford Rd], 5 km NW of Chipping Ongar
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Chelmsford
Historical Region: Hundred of Ongar
Font Location in Church: Inside the church, at the W end of the nave, on the N side
Date: ca. 1200?
Century and Period: 12th - 13th century, Transitional / Early English
Cognate Fonts: Abbess Roding, Fryerning and Little Laver, all in Essex
Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to John Whitworth, of www.essexchurches.info, for his photographs of church and font
Font Notes: Click to view font notes
There is an entry for this Moreton [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/TL5307/moreton/] [accessed 14 February 2023]; it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. The Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (Essex, 1916-1923) notes the font here as one of "a curious group of four square bowls (Abbess Roding, Fryerning, Little Laver [...] and Moreton), somewhat rudely carved with various designs including the sun, moon, stars, whorl (for a comet?), etc." Of this font in particular the RCHM notes: "of Purbeck marble, square bowl, sides ornamented with--E. side, four round-headed panels; N. and S. sides, four fleurs-de-lis; W. side, a crescent, disc and whorl; cylindrical stem with fourdetached angle shafts, late 12th-century, much defaced." In the Victoria County History (Essex, vol. 4, 1956): "There was a church in Moreton before the end of the 11th century. William de Scohies, lord of the manor of Moreton by 1086, [...] gave the church with its land and tithe to the abbey of St. Stephen, Caen. [...] Nothing remains of the pre-13th-century church except the font [...] The Purbeck marble font is of the late 12th century. It consists of a square bowl standing onm a circular base, which has four detached shafts. Two sides of the bowl are ornamented with fleur-de-lis, one has roundheaded arcading, and the fourth a crescent disk, and spiral. The surface is much decayed and the carving incomplete." In Pevsner (1976): "Font. Square, of Purbeck marble, c.1200. It has on one side the familiar row of shallow blank round arches, four in number, on two sides fleurs-de-lis, and on the fourth sun, moon, and a whorl." Ditto in Bettley & Pevsner (2007). Noted in Leach (1975) as a font made of Purbeck marble: "bowl with four panels on one face, four fleur-d-lys on two and a whorl and a crescent on the fourth; the base is later and the subsidiary shafts modern" [source given: RCHM (C&SW), 1921].
COORDINATES
Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal:
51.740631,
0.224697
Church Latitude & Longitude DMS:
51° 44′ 26.27″ N,
0° 13′ 28.91″ E
UTM: 31U 308392 5735836
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material:
stone, limestone (Purbeck marble)
Font Shape: square (mounted)
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: square
Drainage Notes: lead-lining
LID INFORMATION
Date: modern?
Material:
wood,
oak?
Apparatus: no
Notes: round and flat, with metal decoration and ring handle; appears modern
REFERENCES
Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. Accessed: 2006-04-19 00:00:00. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.
Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. Accessed: 2006-05-09 00:00:00. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.
Bettley, James, Essex, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007
Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, An Inventory of the historical monuments in Essex, London: H.M. Stationary Office, 1916-1923
Leach, Rosemary, A Investigation into the use of Purbeck Marble in Medieval England, Hartlepool: E.W. Harrisons & Sons, 1975
Pevsner, Nikolaus, Essex, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976