Mold

Noted in a letter to the editor of 'Archaeologia Cambrensis' (issue no. XXIX, 4th series, January 1877: 157) from "E.O.": There is font in front of the vicarage at Mold ". The Parish web site [http://www.virginmary.org.uk/church1.html] [accessed 27 November 2010] notes: "The present church of St. Mary the Virgin stands on the site of an earlier church built [...] in the twelfth or early thirteenth century. Records from the Norwich Taxation of Ecclesiastical Property show that a church of some sort did exist in Mold in 1253 [...] The building of the present church was initiated by Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, to commemorate the victory of her son, Henry Tudor, at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 [...] A major restoration took place in 1856 under the direction of Sir George Gilbert Scott [to which the present font dates] This stone font, dating from 1856, has a heavy wooden lid [...] The lid is suspended from the ceiling by a mechanism called a counterpoise which enables it to be removed with only minimal effort. The ironwork cross above the font, which is in actual fact made from an eighteenth century chandelier, supports a flying dove, and the two acorns beneath the dove's wings counter balance the weight of the lid." [NB: the font referred to in the Archaeologia Cambrensis article [cf. supra] may have been the font introduced in the late-15th century re-building of this church, as the 19th-century restoration by Scott only moved the font within the church, it must have been replaced at the time of Scott's renovation of the c hurch]. The present font, located at the west end of the south aisle, is octagonal, with decorated sides, both basin and base; it appears to have some shields carved on it. The CPAT Flintshire Churches Survey Project reports: "The pedestal of a medieval font was located in the vicarage garden: it is probably of 15thC date with an octagonal and splayed base."