Fritton St. Catherine / Fredetuna / Freistuna / Fretuna / Fridetuna / Frietuna / Frittetuna

Blomefield (1805-1810) writes: "The church is dedicated to St. Catherine [...] The church and chancel are leaded, the south porch is tiled, the steeple is round at bottom, and octangular at top, and hath three bells". Blomefield (ibid.) names "Master Hamon de Gatele" the first recorded rector here, in 1293. The present font is described in Pevsner & Wilson (1999): "Font. C15. Against the stem four lions, against the bowl four lions and four demi-figures of angels." Noted and illustrated in Knott (2005): "it is nothing special, just a conventional East Anglian font with lions and angels, but they are all grinning wildly, quite the friendliest medieval lions since Salthouse" [Knott refers to his entry on Salthouse and the friendly lions on its font. The font consists of an octagonal basin with vertical sides decorated with alternating sedente-regardant lions and angels holding shields in deeply carved panels; the underbowl chamfer has angel heads with open wings crossing over the sides on the upper level, while the lower level has a square flower on each side; the stem has four sedente lions alternating with four colonnettes on each side. As noted by a Knott [cf. supra], angels as well as lions bear a smiley countenance. [NB: we have no information on the font from the original church here].