Mundford / Mondefort

Blomefield (1805-1810) writes: "The Church is dedicated to St. Leonard; [...] it is a single pile of flint, &c.; the body [...] is covered with tiles; at the west-end stands a four-square tower, of the aforesaid materials, embattled, with copings and quoins of freestone; herein hang three bells", and names 'John de Burtone', 1300, the first recorded rector of this church. The Domesday entry for 'Mondefort' [fol. 186] mentions neither church nor priest here. A font in this church is described in Pevsner & Wilson (1999): "Octagonal, Perp[endicular], with a foot opening out towards the bowl without capitals or interruption and three symbols of Evangelists sticking out from it. St Mark's bull is missing. There is no base now." Illustrated in Knott (2008). The sides of the basin are decorated with large quatrefoils, some blank, at least one with a blank shield inscribed; the mouldings from the thick frames on the basin sides continue down onto the tall and slightly concave underbowl chamfer; on the sides of the latter are trefoiled-headed arches on four side; the other four sides have the protruding symbols of the Evangelists, except the missing one as indicated above. It is an unusual font design for East Anglia, but there is one other font at Ovington [originally from Watton] that has angels holding musical instruments in the same position. The whole appears to be a single block, and rests directly on the ground of the nave [NB: we have no information on the whereabouts of the missing base]. The wooden cover is of the Jacobean type: a flat octagonal platform with eight vertical scroll ribs converging at a ball finial; probably Victorian. [NB: we have no infrmation on the font from the original church here].