Aldington / Audintone

There is an entry for this Aldington [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/TQ8157/aldington/] [accessed 4 November 2014]; it reports one church in it. No font is mentioned in Glynne (1877), who visited this church in 1873, though he notes a stoup near the tower door. Erwood ([1929?]) has: "the font is poor". Torr (1930) writes in the same venue [Archaeologia cantiana]: "Mr. Erwood's statement should not be allowed to pass unchallenged, and it has therefore seemed fitting to vindicate the Aldington font". Torr (ibid.) dates the font, "which bears thirteenth century tooling", to ca. 1200; he identifies the stone of the basin as limestone, the central shaft of the base as ragstone, and the SE and SW corner colonnettes of Bethersden marble, all original; the other two colonnettes, NE and NW, "are modern restorations in Bathstone"; he adds that the sloping base is made of Caen stone, "and the step on which the font stands is of Bethersden". Torr (ibid.) further notes that "the marks of the mediaeval staples for locking on a cover to the bowl are not easy to distinguish, but may have been on the east and west sides of the top of the bowl, and possibly also at the S.W. corner, where the repair has been made. Torr (ibid.) adds: "So far from this font being a "poor" one, it is of simple but good design, and remarkably interesting on account of four different kinds of stone being employed in its conbstruction, and a fifth in its repair." The cover, adds Torr (ibid.) "is also a valuable specimen of its early seventeenth century date, and is of the form of a square tabernacle with a trefoiled panel on each face, showing survival of Gothic influence, and having a detached Ionic shaft at each angle, surmounted by a ball finial, the whole crowned by four crocketed ogee Gothic-survival uprights like flying buttresses, bearing a finial, which was loose last year and should be properly secured. This cover is one of the best in Kent and is a good example of the beautiful post-Reformation church furniture so often recklessly and improperly ejected in the last century." Noted in Kent Churches [www.kentchurches.info]: "Norman font with a bulgy seventeenth century cover". Newman (1980) mentions only the font cover: "Mid C17. Gothic-classical compromise."