Idle No. 2

On the "modern church perched on the hillside" [built in 1830] Mee (1941) notes: "One of its three fonts is from an older building no longer used as a church. Another, elaborately adorned, has a still more intricately carved cover like a star-shaped tower with a spire and flying buttresses." [NB: the older churches/chapels in Idle dated back to 1584 and 1630, but Calverley was the parish church for Idle]. An object inside the church bears the following inscription on a brass plate: "Ancient font from the old chapel Idle"; the object, however, is not an ancient font by any stretch of the imagination; it is a tallish cylindrical column decorated with a narrowing towards the middle highlighting a moulding; the upper end is a narrow and shallow basin. How and when it gained its undeserved description, one can only guess, but it is totally inappropriate. [We are grateful to Colin Hinson, of www.yorkshireCDbooks.co.uk, for his photographs of church and font]