Harlestone / Harleston

Described in Parker (1849): "The font is of cylindrical form, a little larger in diameter at the top than at the bottom. It is quite plain, and beneath it there is a small portion of circular column, adorned with four rudely carved heads; the whole resting on a modern chamfered circular base." Noted in Mee (1945): "12th century church to which the font also belongs (a round font with four heads projecting from the base)." Described in Pevsner & Cherry (1973): "Font. Circular, plain, but from the foot project four heads. Early C13?". Described and illustrated in the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland (2008) which appears to suggest that the font could well be a composite: "it is not certain that the bowl and the drum are contemporary. The simple bowl could, of course, be any date but the form was apparently popular in the earlier 12thc. And not really thereafter. The interior is irregularly hollowed out, and the crude bowl sits ill with the refined aesthetic of the heads." The CRSBI (ibid.) further identifies the heads as "a youthful bishop" at the southeast; "beardless but fleshier" at the northeast; "similar to NE" but very eroded at the northwest; similar agin to the northeast head "but the nose is markedly hooked".