Croston

No individual entry found for Croston in the Domesday survey. Baines (1836) notes the font here with an incorrect number of sides: "the font is small and octagonal [it is actually hexagonal], having the date 1663 upon one of its divisions. This piece of local antiquity is covered with black paint!" [source: www.tarletonvillage.com/history/baines/baines_croston.html]. Lewis' Dictionary of 1848 mentions only that "the font has the date 1663". Noted in Pevsner (1969) and Hartwell & Pevsner (2009): "Font. Dated 1663, and very characteristic of the date. Note especially how the quatrefoils have been geometricized." The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Lancaster, vol. 6, 1911) notes: "The church of Croston was granted by Count Roger of Poitou [i.e., Roger 'le Poitevin', † ca. 1123] to the abbey of St. Martin at Sees, [...] and the Prior and convent of Lancaster accordingly presented the rectors, receiving an annual pension of 6 marks from the church. [...] The oldest parts of the church other than the piscina mentioned later seem to be the east end of the chancel and the lower part of the tower, which are probably of 15th-century date, at which period the church may have been built on the present plan, and to which date some other portions of the building may belong. There was so much rebuilding and restoration, however, in the following three centuries, of which no exact record has been kept, that it is now very difficult to assign the actual date to the greater part of the building. It seems, however, to be largely 16th-century work on a 15th-century basis, altered in the 17th, partly rebuilt in the 18th, and restored in the 19th century. [...] The font is at the west end of the south aisle, and is hexagonal in shape with panelled sides, and dated 1663. It stands on a six-shafted stem and has a modern wood cover." A recent illustration of this font appears in Lancashire Churches [www.lancashirechurches.co.uk/croston.htm]: the font consists of a hexagonal basin, the vertical sides decorated with deeply-carved panels containing geometric quatrefoils [cf. Pevsner supra], raised on a cluster of a central shaft and four outer colonnettes; the inner well of the basin is lead-lined. The combination of its hexagonal shape and geometric decoration make this font an odd one for the period.