Yatesbury, Wiltshire

This drawing probably suffers from the curse of the font base, curse of the font foliage band, curse of the font generally. It looks quite simple when you first see it. But it turned out to be a bit of a challenge. I'm not displeased with it though. It's not a design like any others I've seen so far. The shield-like leaves have long stems tucking under the bowl in a very 3-D way. It was also interesting to note the lock on top. Can't have people getting at that holy water.

 

In English Church Furniture by JC Cox and A Harvey (1908), it says:

Fonts were ordered to have covers and to be kept locked for the double purpose of cleanliness and for checking the use of the water for superstitious purposes. The Bishop of Exeter, in 1287, ordered that each parish church was to be furnished with a baptisterium lapideum bene seratum [a stone baptistry well locked]. Archbishop Winchelsea, in his visitation of 1305, inquired whether there was a fontem cum serura [a font/spring with a lock]. A provincial English synod, held in 1236, provided that the water was to be changed every seven days. The rubric of the first English Prayer-book provided for the change being made once every month; the Scottish book, of 1604, ordered the fortnightly renewal of the water; but by the present rubric there is to be a fresh supply at every baptism.

I feel a bit sorry that there's never any water in the fonts we've visited, after all it is the reason they were created. But maybe having a reservoir of water isn't important to the Church of England. I don't think they go in for all that Holy Water business. You pop the water in, you baptise a few children, you take the water out again. It's not the water so much as the ritual. Next time you need a little bottle of holy water to fend off a vampire, remind yourself that vampires don't exist either.

Images © Rhiannon 2014