Cerklje na Gorenjskem / Cirkelach / Tirnovlach / Trnovlje / Zirklach

The basin of what is believed was originally a baptismal font of the 13th or 14th century has survived, now [2023] partially built into a wall and used as a public fountain; the inner well shows a side drain; there is also a large notch cut into the upper rim. A communication from Pol Herman to BSI (e-mail of 15 September 2023) gives some background information relevant to this place and church: "The tradition about the miraculous reason for the creation of the Cerkljan church says that the shepherds found the image of Mary where it stands today and carried it home, but the next time they found it again in the same place. After this happened a few times, they realized where Mary wanted to live, and therefore they built a church for her there. Later, when the church center was moved from Šmartno to the present place, a large parish church was built and surrounded by a cemetery. The latter probably happened in the eleventh century, and from the middle of the following century we can also read about the parish and the church and its patroness in preserved documents. Next to the church grew the village of Cerklje, which is named after it, the parish building complex and the chapel of St. Thomas. Over the centuries, the Gothic presbytery, the chapels of Saints Anthony the Hermit and Anthony of Padua, the sacristy and the bell tower were added to the church. After the 1511 earthquake, it had at least seven altars, and a little before that, because of the Turkish threat, it was surrounded by a high camp wall with four towers, a granary building and a defensive ditch. The camp was gradually demolished during the nineteenth century. Of the medieval equipment, only the octagonal Gothic baptismal font with a cup shape from the thirteenth or fourteenth century has been preserved until now, by which our ancestors were welcomed into the Christian community for centuries, and today, encased in concrete, it serves as a trough in front of the entrance to the cemetery. In addition to the preserved basin, the Cerkljanji probably had some kind of unpreserved pedestal, it is less likely that it stood directly on the ground.