Durham No. 6

INFORMATION

Font ID: 12659DUR
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Century and Period/Style: 13th - 14th century, Medieval
Church / Chapel Name: Chapel of St. Mary Magdalen [in ruins]
Font Location in Church: [cf. FontNotes]
Church Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17529789
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Mary Magdalene
Site Location: Durham, North East, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located on the N side of Gilesgate, near the old railway station [now "on the roadside just after the roundabout half-way up Claypath on the road to Sunderland" [cf. FontNotes]
Additional Comments: disappeared font?
Font Notes:
The Victoria County History (Durham, 1928) notes that, within the ruins of the old hospital of St. Mary Magdalene, in the Parish of St. Giles, Durham, is "the base of an early font of Frosterley marble". Harvey (2006) cites an entry from the Durham Cathedral Muniments' Almoner of 1450, which notes that "the font had a marble stone at its foot for which Nicholas Chaunceller was paid 8d." [NB: Harvey (ibid.) notes that the old church "was a parish church as well as a hospital", and was by then [ca. 1450] in ruins and on boggy foundations; it was being replaced by a new church at the time -- the font was obviously the original one -- is the base noted in the VCH part of that font?]

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone, limestone (Frosterley marble)

REFERENCES

  • Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.
  • Harvey, Margaret, Lay religious life in late medieval Durham, Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2006, p. 23 and fn195