Axminster / Alseminstre

Main image for Axminster / Alseminstre

Image copyright © Ceolmor, 2008

PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE -- IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE

Results: 1 records

view of font and cover

the present font and cover
Scene Description: the present font and cover
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Ceolmor, 2008
Image Source: digital photograph taken 29 July 2008 by Ceolmor [http://www.flickr.com/photos/23401971@N03/2819939070/in/set-72157607072307003/] [accessed 6 January 2010]
Copyright Instructions: PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE -- IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE

INFORMATION

Font ID: 14277AXM
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Century and Period/Style: 12th - 14th century [re-cut?], Medieval [altered]
Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. Mary [aka, Minster]
Font Location in Church: Inside the church, in the nave [moved -- cf. FontNotes]
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Mary the Virgin
Church Address: 3 Silver St, Axminster EX13 5AH, United Kingdom -- Tel.: +44 1297 792120
Site Location: Devon, South West, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located off the A358, 8 km NW of Lyme Regis, 40 km NNE of Exeter
Historical Region: Hundred of Axminster [in Domesday]
Additional Comments: disappeared font? (the one from the Domesday-time church here)
Font Notes:
There are two entries for Axminster [variant spelling in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SY2998/axminster/] [accessed 4 July 2025], one of which, in the tenancy of King William, reports "1 church. 0.5 church lands" in it. Pulman (1854) cites from the parish books an entry referent to a payment made "To Leonard Peream and Thomas Poole for setting up the font, and lead, and soder, and labor £2 s.5 d.0"; this Pulman footnotes with a citation from a 'Mr. Davidson': "The font had no doubt been thrown down during the rebellion, and its lining of lead converted into bullets" [NB: the date of the parish books entry is not dated but it must correspond to circa 1660, the time of the end of the Commonwealth and the Restoration of Charles I]. The font itself is described as ancient, large and of octagonal shape; located then [i.e., ca. 1854] in front of the pulpitt, and Pulman (bid.) adds, "It formerly occupied its proper place, from which it was removed when the singing gallery was reduced to its present dimensions, in 1834." John Murray's Handbook for travellers […] (1865) notes: "in the nave […] an old but plain font". Illustrated in 1875 in Hutchinson's diaries and sketchbooks (2010). Not mentioned in Pevsner (1952). [NB: the fabric of the church goes back to Norman times but we no other information on the date of this font]. The present font is illustrated by Ceolmor in Flickr [http://www.flickr.com/photos/23401971@N03/2819939070/in/set-72157607072307003/] [accessed 6 January 2010], an octagonal basin with tapering sides, a moulded octagonal stem and a square lower base; the font cover is a modern one, octagonal and flat, with a caarving of the Baptism of Christ. If this is the original font, it has been totally re-cut.

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone
Font Shape: octagonal, mounted
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: octagonal

LID INFORMATION

Date: modern
Material: wood
Apparatus: no
Notes: [cf. FontNotes]

REFERENCES

  • Hutchinson, Peter Orlando, Diary of a Devon antiquarian: the illustrated journals and sketchbooks of Peter Olrlando Hutchinson, 1871-1894, Wellington, Somerset: Halsgrove, 2010, p. 67
  • Murray, John, A handbook for travellers in Devon and Cornwall, London: John Murray, 1865, p. 24 / [http://books.google.ca/books?id=V_YGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=%22roborough+stone%22&source=bl&ots=2ZhOkO8ZIn&sig=RriwKcw-zwLPfFdGUaHE7WccPgU&hl=en&ei=QRWkSZHXMYjTnQe2ud2pBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result#PPR5,M1] [accessed 24 February 2009]
  • Pulman, George P.R., The Book of the Axe: containing a piscatorial description of the stream, and a history of all the parishes and remarkable spots upon its banks […], London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1854, p. 331, 357 and fn1 / [http://books.google.ca/books?id=7vcGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA256&lpg=PA256&dq=hawkchurch+church&source=bl&ots=TjjxLXpAV-&sig=_dtNZhp4BN5ikgeudqfOs24TWIU&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPR1,M1] [accessed 3 February 2009]