Comberton / Cumbertone
Image copyright © John Salmon, 2012
CC-BY-SA-2.0
Results: 5 records
view of font and cover in context
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Salmon, 2012
Image Source: digital photograph taken 8 September 2012 by John Salmon [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3149145] [accessed 13 November 2014]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0
view of church exterior - southeast view
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Salmon, 2011
Image Source: digital photograph taken 28 May 2011 by John Salmon [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2441029] [accessed 13 November 2014]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0
view of church interior - nave - looking west
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Salmon, 2012
Image Source: digital photograph taken 8 September 2012 by John Salmon [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3149136] [accessed 13 November 2014]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0
view of church interior - nave - looking east
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Salmon, 2012
Image Source: digital photograph taken 8 September 2012 by John Salmon [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3149133] [accessed 13 November 2014]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0
design element - motifs - moulding
Scene Description: a very thick one atop the stem
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © John Salmon, 2012
Image Source: digital photograph taken 8 September 2012 by John Salmon [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3149145] [accessed 13 November 2014]
Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0
INFORMATION
Font ID: 13180COM
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Century and Period/Style: 13th century, Early English
Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin
Font Location in Church: Inside the church [cf. FontNotes]
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Mary the Virgin [dedicated to The Assumption of St. Mary until the Reformation]
Church Address: Church Lane, Comberton, Cambridge CB23 7ED
Site Location: Cambridgeshire, East, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located on the B1046, 10 km WSW of Cambridge
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Ely
Historical Region: Hundred of Wetherley
Additional Comments: damaged font [cf. FontNotes] -- no mention of the font in Cambridgeshire Churches [accessed 13 Oct 2007]
Font Notes:
Click to view
There are three entries for Combertone [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL3855/comberton/] [accessed 16 May 2016], none of which mentions cleric or church in it. Paley's Guide (1844) notes: "The font is octagonal, Early-English, of plain but rather interesting design." Described by Gardner-Smith ([ca. 1920?]), former vicar of St. Mary's, who remarks on the damage: "the font, though plain, is interesting. It is of twelfth or thirteenth century date, and the stone has been cracked in driving in the staples by which a lock cover was secured [...] The present cover is good piece of seventeenth century work." Although Gardner-Smith (ibid.) does not mention its actual location in the church, he remarks: "Probably the font has been moved, its present position being most unusual" [NB: whatever the location of the font was at that time, it is now located towards the west end of the south aisle, opposite the south doorway, which is a traditional location for a font]. Kelly's county Directory describes the font in the same terms as Paley. The font and cover are illustrated in the RCHM (Cambridgeshire, 1968), which dates the font to the 13th century and the wooden cover of oak to the 17th. The Victoria County History (Cambridge..., vol. 5: 1973): "A church existed at Comberton before 1100. Picot the sheriff granted it to his foundation of Austin canons, later transferred to Barnwell Priory, and the gift was confirmed by Remigius, bishop of Lincoln, (d. 1092), and by Henry I [i.e., 1100-1135] [...] Nothing survives from before the 13th century"; no font mentioned in the VCH entry.
COORDINATES
UTM: 31U 296460 5785322
Latitude & Longitude (Decimal): 52.180756, 0.022797
Latitude & Longitude (DMS): 52° 10′ 50.72″ N, 0° 1′ 22.07″ E
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material: stone, limestone
Font Shape: octagonal, mounted
Basin Interior Shape: rod
Basin Exterior Shape: octagonal
LID INFORMATION
Date: 17th-century?
Material: wood, oak
Apparatus: not now
Notes: [cf. FontNotes] [NB: the acorn-shaped finial has a loop hook that may have been used to raise the cover at some point]
REFERENCES
- Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.
- Gardner-Smith, Percival, Comberton Parish Church: a descriptive and historical account, [s.l.]: [s.n.], [ca. 1920?], [http://combertonchurch.co.uk/church_history.pdf] [accessed 13 October 2007]
- Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), An inventory of historical monuments in the County of Cambridge, Woking; London: Printed in England for Her Majesty's Stationary Office by Unwin Brothers Unlimited, 1968, vol. 1: xlii, 51 and pl. 17
- Kelly, Kelly's Directory of Cambridgeshire, London: Kelly's Directories Ltd., 1929, [www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/CAM/Comberton/] [accessed 13 October 2007]
- Paley, Frederick Apthorp, The Ecclesiologist's guide to the churches within a circuit of seven miles round Cambridge, with introductory remarks, London; Cambridge: J. van Voorst; Metcalfe and Palmer, 1844, p. 22