Slijpe / Arleboudskapelle / Slijpe in Middelkerke

Baptismal font of stone listed and illustrated in BALaT KIK-IRPA [https://balat.kikirpa.be/object/37009] [accessed 24 December 2023], dated to 1651 by an inscription on the side of the octagonal basin, which also records the name of the donor, Johannes Witvliet, pastor of the parish. The font cover was made of copper in 1950 and bears an inscription as well. A communication to BSI from Pol Herman (14 April 2023) informs: "Slijpe, Sint-Niklaas. Slijpe was originally called Arleboudskapelle. That name refers to lord Arleboud who built a chapel near his court around 1100, on borrowed land from the Count of Flanders. The village of Arleboudskapelle grew around this chapel dedicated to Sint-Niklaas. Slijpe was originally the name of the tidal area around the village. And only in the 14th century, it became the name of the village itself. The Sint-Niklaaskapel quickly grew into an independent parish church, split off from the mother parish of Leffinge. In 1137 the church came under the patronage of the Templar Knights and from 1313 until the French Revolution under that of the Hospitallers. A fire in 1822 reduced the late Gothic church to ashes and the subsequent church was largely destroyed in the First World War. From 1922 onwards, the reconstruction of a three-aisled, neo-Gothic hall church was started. The edge of the baptismal font basin bears an inscription with the name of the donor, Johannes Witvliet, who was pastor of the parish. The year mentioned is 1651."