Norman Font - St Nonna - Altarnun, Cornwall - Romanesque Architecture on Waymarking.com

A wonderful 12th century square font, probably one of the finest Norman fonts in Cornwall. It features very large carvings of bearded faces, one at each corner, which still hold traces of ancient paint, giving the faces a wonderfully lifelike quality. Between the faces are very large carved rosettes.

"The church architecture of Cornwall and Devon typically differs from that of the rest of southern England: most medieval churches in the larger parishes were rebuilt in the later medieval period with one or two aisles and a western tower, the aisles being the same width as the nave and the piers of the arcades being of one of a few standard types. Wagon roofs often survive in these churches. The typical tower is of three stages, often with buttresses set back from the angles. Only a few Cornish church towers are beautiful or striking, the majority are plain and dull. Part of the reason is the shortage of good building stone in the county. The arcades of those churches with aisles generally have piers of one of three different types: Type A "consists of four attached shafts in the main axes and four hollows in the diagonals"; Type B which seems to have been in use earlier has "square piers with four attached demi-shafts"; or octagonal piers. Type A is very common in both Devon and Cornwall.

Churches of the Decorated period are relatively rare, as are those with spires; about a dozen churches have spires, the most elaborate being at Lostwithiel. There are very few churches from the 17th and 18th centuries. There is a distinctive type of Norman font in many Cornish churches which is sometimes called the Altarnun type. The style of carving in benchends is also recognisably Cornish."

SOURCE - (visit link)

Web site proof of Romanesque or Pre-Romanesque features: [Web Link] Type of building (structure): Church Address: St Nonna's Church Altarnun Launceston, Cornwall England PL15 7SJ Date of origin: Not listed Architect(s) if known: Not listed Romanesque or Pre-Romanesque: Not listed

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