Great Massingham No. 1 / Dertford / Marsincha / Marsincham / Masinaham / Masincha / Masingham / Massingham Magna / Massingheham
Image copyright © Evelyn Simak, 2010
CC-BY-SA-3.0
Results: 9 records
design element - architectural - arcade - blind - trefoiled arches - cusped - 8
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Simon Knott, 2006
Image Source: detail of a digital photograph in Simon Knott [www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/ greatmassingham/greatmassingham.htm] [accessed 5 January 2006]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
design element - motifs - moulding - graded
Scene Description: [cf. Font notes]
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Simon Knott, 2006
Image Source: detail of a digital photograph in Simon Knott [www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/ greatmassingham/greatmassingham.htm] [accessed 5 January 2006]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of church exterior - northeast view
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Evelyn Simak, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 17 June 2010 by Evelyn Simak [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1920208] [accessed 21 November 2013]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
view of church exterior - northwest end
Scene Description: Photo caption: "Early C15 tower"
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © George Plunkett, 2013
Image Source: B&W photograph taken 30 September 1995 by George Plunkett [www.georgeplunkett.co.uk/Norfolk/G/Gt Massingham St Mary's church from NW [7258] 1995-09-30.jpg] [accessed 21 November 2013]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission by Jonathan Plunkett
view of church exterior - south porch
Scene Description: Photo caption: "Early English porch"
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © George Plunkett, 2013
Image Source: B&W photograph taken 30 September 1995 by George Plunkett [www.georgeplunkett.co.uk/Norfolk/G/Gt Massingham St Mary's church S porch [7259] 1995-09-30.jpg] [accessed 21 November 2013]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
view of church interior - nave - looking east
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Evelyn Simak, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 17 June 2010 by Evelyn Simak [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1920213] [accessed 21 November 2013]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
view of church interior - nave - looking west
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Evelyn Simak, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 17 June 2010 by Evelyn Simak [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1920253] [accessed 21 November 2013]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
view of font and cover
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Evelyn Simak, 2010
Image Source: digital photograph taken 17 June 2010 by Evelyn Simak [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1920259] [accessed 21 November 2013]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0
view of font and cover in context
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Simon Knott, 2006
Image Source: digital photograph in Simon Knott [www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/ greatmassingham/greatmassingham.htm] [accessed 5 January 2006]
Copyright Instructions: Standing permission
INFORMATION
FontID: 12491MAS
Church/Chapel: Parish Church of St. Mary
Church Patron Saints: St. Mary the Virgin
Church Location: Church Lane, Great Massingham, Norfolk PE32 2HN
Country Name: England
Location: Norfolk, East Anglia
Directions to Site: Located off (W) the A1065, 15 km SW of Fakenham
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Norwich
Historical Region: Hundred of Freebridge
Font Location in Church: Inside the church, in the W end, against a pillar of the nave
Century and Period: 13th century, Early English
Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Simon Knott, of www.norfolkchurches.co.uk, for the photograph of this font; we are also grateful to Jonathan Plunkett for the photographs of this church, taken by his father, George Plunkett, in 1995
Massingham has seven entries in the Domesday survey [under variant spellings] [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/XX0000/great-and-little-massingham/] [accessed 21 November 2013], but mentions neither church nor cleric in it. Blomefield (1805-1810) writes: "At the survey no distinction is made of the townships of Great and Little Massingham, so that it seems at that time to be undivided"; he does not give a date for the founding of the churches here, but notes: "Ivo the priest, seems to be rector of Massingham St. Mary, and AllSaints, in the time of William Turbus Bishop of Norwich". In his entry for Walsingham Priory, Harrod (1817) gives the period for Turbus' episcopalian mandate as "from 1146 to 1172], and the first edition (1883-1921) of the Dictionary of National Biography entry for "William de Turbe or Turbus (bishop of Norwich)" gives his death date as 1175. Furthermore, as Blomefield (ibid.) writes: "There being a dispute with the prior relating to the tithes of his manor, William Bishop of Norwich ordained that the prior should pay yearly to the churches of Massingham, for the tithes of their demean lands, &c.[...] and because it lay in two parishes of the churches of Massingham, the portion to be paid to the church of St. Mary, after the death of Yvo the priest, should be 10s. and the portion to that of All-Saints 5s. per ann. [...] This seems to be in the time of William Turbus, Bishop of Norwich, and before the year 1149, when William, the archdeacon, was dead. We therefore know that two churches existed in Massingham before 1149. Blomefield (ibid.) lists the rectors of St. Mary's all the way down the times, from the aforementioned "Ivo", rector of both, St. Mary's and All Saints' [aka All Hallows'], to the one who died at the time of Blomefield's writing in the 18th century. It appears from this list that, as of 1452, the two rectories are consolidated into St. Mary's, and the rectors' list for All Saints' stops with "William Gaweleston", who took office of All Saints' rectorate in 1427; the list stops after him.
The present font here is noted in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as a baptismal font of the Decorated period. Described in Pevsner & Wilson (1999): "C14, octagonal, with cusped ogee arches under coarsely croketed gables." Illustrated in Knott (2006). The font consists of an octagonal basin with vertical sides decorated with cusped trefoiled arches, the underbowl with a graded chamfer, raised on a plain octagonal stem and a splaying lower base, moulded and octagonal. The font appears quite scruffy and there are some [cement?] repairs to the area of the upper rim. The wooden font cover, octagonal and flat, with metal decoration, is probably Victorian.
COORDINATES
Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal:
52.774174,
0.665059
Church Latitude & Longitude DMS:
52° 46′ 27.02″ N,
0° 39′ 54.21″ E
UTM: 31U 342497 5849706
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material:
stone
Font Shape: octagonal (mounted)
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: octagonal
LID INFORMATION
Date: Victorian? -- 19th century?
Material:
wood,
oak?
Apparatus: no
Notes: [cf. FontNotes]
REFERENCES
Blomefield, Francis, An essay towards a topographical history of Norfolk, 1805-1810
Harrod, Henry, Gleanings among castles and convents of Norfolk, Norwich: Published by subscription; printed by C. Muskett, 1857
Harrod, Henry, Gleanings among castles and convents of Norfolk, Norwich: Published by subscription; printed by C. Muskett, 1857
Knott, Simon, The Norfolk Churches Site, Simon Knott, 2004. [standing permission to reproduce images received from Simon (February 2005]. Accessed: 2007-01-05 00:00:00. URL: www.norfolkchurches.co.uk.
Pevsner, Nikolaus, Norfolk 2: North-West and South (2nd ed.), London: Penguin, 1999
Tyrrell-Green, E., Baptismal Fonts Classified and Illustrated, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge: The Macmillan Co., 1928