Assenede / Assenède / Hasenethe / Hasnede / Hasseneyde
INFORMATION
Font ID: 26002ASS
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Date: n.d.
Church / Chapel Name: Parochiekerk Sint-Petrus en Sint-Martinus, Assenede
Font Location in Church: [disappeared]
Church Patron Saint(s): St. Peter & St. Martin
Church Notes: church probably founded in 1071 by Robert I the Frisian; first mentioned in 1108; modified 14thC; damaged by fire 1573; restored 17th and 18thC; set on fire by retreating German army in 1944, most furniture destroyed; restored with hew furniture 1948-1950
Church Address: Markt 17, 9960 Assenede, Belgium -- Tel.: +32 493 34 77 18
Site Location: Oost-Vlaanderen / Flandre Est, Vlaanderen / Flandres, Belgium, Europe
Directions to Site: Located off the N436, about 25 km N of Ghent, near the border with the Netherlands
Ecclesiastic Region: Bisdom Gent / Diocèse de Gand
Additional Comments: disappeared font? (is a head built into an external wall part of it?) ***IMAGES RECEIVED -- TO BE LOADED AND ENTERED IN IMAGE SUBFORM***
Font Notes:
Click to view
The present font and cover are modern, 20th-century. An earlier font and its cover of the 19th century, probably destroyed in WWII, is listed and illustrated in BALaT KIK-IRPA [https://balat.kikirpa.be/object/19908] [accessed 30 November 2025]: "doopvont [...] steen, koper [...] Date: 1801 - 1900".
A communication to BSI from Pol Herman (e-mail of 30 November 2025) provides historical information on the church and adds: "No trace of old baptismal fonts remains. The marble basin of the baptismal font listed in KIK-IRPA [cf. supra] appears to be 19th-century. The photo dates from 1942, this means two years before the destruction of the building by the German army. Probably the font did not survive. The baptismal font in use today is 20th-century. High up in the church exterior wall, there was a single severely weathered limestone head. In 2016, it was restored in an imaginative way. It is highly unlikely that this mustached face is representative of the mediaeval original. Could it originally have been a head of a Romanesque baptismal font? We will never know."
A communication to BSI from Pol Herman (e-mail of 30 November 2025) provides historical information on the church and adds: "No trace of old baptismal fonts remains. The marble basin of the baptismal font listed in KIK-IRPA [cf. supra] appears to be 19th-century. The photo dates from 1942, this means two years before the destruction of the building by the German army. Probably the font did not survive. The baptismal font in use today is 20th-century. High up in the church exterior wall, there was a single severely weathered limestone head. In 2016, it was restored in an imaginative way. It is highly unlikely that this mustached face is representative of the mediaeval original. Could it originally have been a head of a Romanesque baptismal font? We will never know."
Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Pol Herman for bringing this site to our attention and for his help documenting it
COORDINATES
UTM: 31U 552595 5675423
Latitude & Longitude (Decimal): 51.227767, 3.753239
Latitude & Longitude (DMS): 51° 13′ 39.96″ N, 3° 45′ 11.66″ E