Baptism Font - St Eata - Atcham, Shropshire - Stone Church Artefacts on Waymarking.com

A panelled octagonal stone font in St Eata's church, Atcham, dated 1675. The inscription reads:
IS
WP
CW
1675

Until 1946 it was located in the base of the tower. The initials that appear on it seem to be those of past Churchwardens John Chapman of Chilton and William Patteshall of Emstrey who were significant members of the Atcham community.

"The unusual dedication commemorates Eata (d. 686), a Northumbrian Saxon who at various time was Abbot of Melrose and Bishop of Lindisfarne and Hexham (The Anglo-Saxon Age c. 400 - 1042, by D.J.V. Fisher, pub. Longman, 1973). However, the church that is dedicated to him here is not a particularly rewarding one to visit for the Permo-Triassic red sandstone of which it is constructed, although attractive, has not worn well, and the building’s most significant features have all been renewed, and mostly rather badly. The church is formed of a chancel, a nave with a S. porch, and a W. tower, of which the last is the most striking on approach from the north, being of massive construction, embattled and unbuttressed, save only for a slight projection of the masonry at the angles and shallow diagonal buttresses above the nave roof to the east. There are two tiers of bell-openings to the north, west and south, of Early English form in the lower tier, composed of pairs of lancet openings separated by shafts, and Perpendicular on all four sides above, immediately beneath an incised frieze of quatrefoils in lozenges, leading to the obvious conclusion that a thirteenth century tower was heightened in the late fourteenth or fifteenth century. Possibly of greater interest, however, is the large and presumably once rather grand, round-headed W. doorway, with five orders of renewed colonnettes with unmoulded capitals, which, at the very least, bear witness to the thickness of the wall, showing this to be Norman or - assuming the colonnettes replace an original feature - more probably, Norman-Transitional, an ascription that would then also fit the large crude lancet above. There is also a small round-headed window in the N. wall of the nave, which might be contemporary or earlier, though whether it could actually be Saxon, as notes in the church suggests, appears distictly doubtful, notwithstanding its internal triangular head: “Anglo-Saxon walling", as Sir Alfred Clapham observed, "is commonly between 2½ and 3 ft. in thickness..., [a dimension] seldom exceeded even in the major churches..., [whereas] Norman builders seldom employed walling of less..., even in their smallest” "

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Approximate Age of Artefact: 1675 Relevant Website: Not listed

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