Hartwell nr. Northampton

A Norman font in this church is reported in Baker (1822-1841) [cf. infra]. The Victoria County History (Northampton, vol. 5, 2002) notes: "There was a priest on the bishop of Bayeux's fee in Hartwell in 1086 [...] The chapel, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, stood in the middle of the deserted village whose site is represented today by Chapel Farm, [...] and remained in use after the settlement itself was reduced to a single farm." The VCH (ibid.) further notes that "By the time Baker was writing, the aisle had been taken down and the arches dividing it from the nave and chancel bricked up. There was no division between nave and chancel. He described the main south door, a blocked doorway in the south wall leading to the chancel, the four nave arches, and the plain circular font as all clearly Norman." [footnoted to Baker, Northants., ii. 186-7]. In its description of the new church the VCH (ibid.) notes it was erected in 1851 "in the centre of the modern village", but there is no mention of the earlier or a later font in it. The font in the new church is of neo-Romanesque design, cylindrical and monolithic, decorated with a rope moulding at the upper rim, and a blank arcade of intersecting round arches around the sides. The wooden cover, also modern, is octagonal, with a cross finial/handle.