Belus / Bélus

The present font in this church is a rather weird (original?) version of the French double-font designs; the basin is in the general shape of a bath-tub and has three wells carved in line in it: the well on the left (the pointed side of the tub) is square, while the central and right side wells are circular; there appear to be two large holes (drain?) on the front, but the correspond to the square well and round well on the right, and are two high up the side to make sense as drain holes; normally the odd well [or two of them] tend to be much smaller as they are usually meant to hold the holy-wells, the baptismal spoon, etc.; the basin is mounted on three cylindrical pedestal bases with round splaying lower bases. The basin, but not the bases, appears to be partially built into the wall of the church. It is obviously the work of a local mason [or, perhaps, a bathtub maker]. Noted and illustrated in Visites Aquitaine [http://visites.aquitaine.fr/fonts-baptismaux-de-l-eglise-notre-dame-de-l-assomption-18065] [accessed 6 December 2013]: "Réalisés au XVIIIe siècle, les fonts baptismaux de l’église de Bélus présentent une grande originalité. Ils sont monilithes, c’est-à-dire taillés dans un seul bloc de pierre. Trois bassins alignés y sont creusés. Le premier est de forme carrée, tandis que les deux autres sont ronds. Les fonts baptismaux de l’église Notre-Dame de l’Assomption se trouvent dans l’appentis du porche de l’édifice." [NB: we have no information on the font of the medieval church here].