EAST ANGLIAN FONTS
It is curious that nearly all the thirty “seven sacrament fonts” in the kingdom are found in East Anglia; those of Walsoken, Little Walsingham, East Dereham, and Great Glenham in Norfolk, and Westall in Suffolk, are specially fine. And the churchwarden’s accounts for East Dereham show that no expense was spared on the making; the total of £12 14s. 2d., being equivalent to over £200 of our money.
The sacraments depicted are Baptism, Confirmation, Penance, The Eucharist, Holy Orders, Holy Matrimony, and Extreme Unction. But to return to our own county.
Utterby, near Louth, has an open channel to drain the water off from the font into the churchyard—a very uncommon feature.
Wickenby, near Wragby, retains the old bar and staple to secure the font cover, at the time when the fonts were all ordered to be locked to prevent possibility of the water being tainted by magic. “Water bewitched” is a familiar expression for weak tea. I wonder if it comes from this.
Of later fonts the quaintest is in Moulton church, near Spalding, and now disused. It represents the trunk of a tree carved in stone, the branches going round the bowl and the serpent round the trunk, with Adam and Eve, rather more than half life size, discussing the apple. It dates from 1830, and seems to be a copy of one in the church of St. James’, Piccadilly, said to have been carved in marble by Grinling Gibbons.
Mr. Francis Bond, in his charming book on porches and fonts, says that some of the fonts in our most ancient Lincolnshire churches, Cabourn, Waith, Scartho and Clee, look older than they are by reason of their coarse workmanship. He notes that the cover of the Skirbeck font belonged to a larger one destroyed by the Puritans, the present font having been put up in 1662.
WOODEN FONTS
The material of all the fonts described above is either stone or lead. We have very few of any other material, but of these by far the most interesting are those made of solid oak, of which specimens are extant at Dinas-Mawddwy (pronounced Mouthy) and Evenechtyd in Wales. But one might go on long enough talking about fonts, and I would only urge readers to go themselves and study them, and if they would pick out a few of the finest they should visit the fonts and font covers we have mentioned, and especially such typical fonts as are to be found at Winchester and Durham, at Walsoken in Norfolk, at Fishlake in Yorkshire, and Bridekirk in Cumberland, whenever they happen to be in those neighbourhoods.
The worst of fonts is that they are so easily removable. Even in such out-of-the-way places as Crowle the font has not remained, though the Norman south wall with its beautiful doorway is in quite good repair.