Ruddington

INFORMATION

Font ID: 15796RUD
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Date: ca. 1479?
Font Century and Period/Style: 15th century (late?), Perpendicular
Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. Peter
Font Location in Church: [cf. FontNotes]
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Peter
Site Location: Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: Located 7 km S of Nottingham
Font Notes:
Lowe (1874) informs that the font from the nearby church of Flawford [cf. Index entry] was moved to Ruddington St. Peter's when the former was demolished in 1773. Shrimpton (1981) [http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/NOTTSGEN/2003-06/1054638052] [accessed 9 December 2009], however, writes: "the status of the Chapel of St. Mary is to increase while that of the mother church declines. Flawford loses its daughter-churches one by one as they attain parish status of their own, and in spite of the set-back of severe depopulation during the Black Death in 1348/9 in which our village (and its clergy) suffered with
other places, new growth centred on the present village area. The need was expressed in 1479 for a font "where the people were". Its erection was approved
by the Archbishop of York, and baptisms could now take place within the growing community." If Shrimpton is right, there would have been another font from the Perpendicular period since the end of the 15th century at Ruddington St. Mary's [later St. Peter's]. [NB: we have no certainty as to the identity of the present font in Ruddington's parish church -- to be resolved]