B and I visited Kencot on August bank holiday last year. It's got a mad tympanum, so that absorbed our drawing energy. But there were also interesting Norman things inside. One of them being this font. Guy Thornton has a photo of it here with some flowers in.
It's very neatly and evenly carved, and I remember that this did make me question its age. But I think when you look at the design, it's got that typical repetitive pattern that makes its Norman origin pretty believable.
It sounds a bit odd, but what it reminds me of most, is my beloved cast concrete Brutalist buildings. Something like this - with straightforward geometric design, and the character of the decoration deriving directly from the nature of the material. On the photo of the font you may notice that extra texture is derived from (what I think are) fossil shells embedded in the stone. I like that, it breaks up the geometrical design in an interesting and random way. I also really like the way the carver has produced three different tones from the way the carving interacts with the light - dark, medium and light.
It also looks remarkably like a salad spinner or a zoetrope. But neither of those things had been invented in Norman times either. I'd initially dismissed it as less interesting for its flatness. But actually I think it's a grower.
Image © Rhiannon 2015
