Lydiard Tregoz / Liddiard Treggooze / Lydiard Tregoze / Lydiard Tregooze / South Lydiard

Drawing of a font in the Harvey Pridham Drawings of English Fonts (MS 56). [Folder Number, Item Description]. University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries. Special Collections Dept., done by Harvey Pridham in March 1888 accompanied by the following description: "All Oct., very rough & irregular. Coated with thick yellow wash. - heavy lead lining, cup shaped bowl. 11 1/2 deep, margin varying 4" - 4 3/4". Position, N side Nave walk, against W. Tower wall. Modern cover." Noted in Buck (1951) as a group of octagonal baptismal fonts with simple plain mouldings and dating from the late 12th or early 13th century in the county of Wiltshire, at Alderton, Blunsdon St. Andrew, Broad Hinton, Collingbourne Kingston, Corston, Fonthill Bishop, Idmiston, Lydiard Tregoze, Marden and Melksham. The Victoria County History (Wiltshire, vol. 9, 1970) notes: "The church of Lydiard Tregoze is first mentioned in 1100 when Harold of Ewias gave it to St. Peter's Abbey, Gloucester, along with other endowments, to found a cell at Ewias (Herefs.) [...] Externally the church appears to date from the 15th century, but close examination of the interior shows that it is of 13th-century origin. [...] The font dates from the 13th century." Baptismal font consisting of an octagonal basin with a rounded underbowl, all plain but for a flat moulding at the upper rim; raised on a squat octagonal pedestal base totally plain, and a lower base that is almost a mirror image of the basin; the whole rests on a narrow quadrangular plinth attached to the base of a pillar from the nave. The wooden cover is an octagonal pyramid, decorated with triangular panels on the sides, with a knob finial. Not mentioned in Pevsner & Cherry (1975).