Baptismal Font, St Mary & All Saints' Church, Church Street, Little Walsingham, Norfolk, NR22 6BH - Stone Church Artefacts on Waymarking.com

This parish church dates from the C14th and C15th but was gutted by fire on 14th July, 1961, only the tower and lower parts of the walls, the font, some memorial brasses and north porch remaining. The rest of the church has been restored, Laurence King was the architect, with a new nave roof and new arcades and is now Grade I listed. Built of flint with stone dressings it comprises a nave, a chancel, north and south aisles, north and south transepts, a west tower with lead needle spire and porch, and a C15th two-storeyed and vaulted south porch. There are new and restored Perpendicular windows, the east window by John Hayward. The fire also destroyed several C15th screens.

The very good font, C15th, is on three steps, the top one with the shape of a Maltese Cross, at the west end of the nave. All steps are decorated with tracery motifs, the stem has shallow statuettes in the panels and smaller ones on the buttresses, all under nodding ogee arches. The panels on the bowl show the Seven Sacraments and the Crucifixion. Considered so good that a replica was exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1861. Confirmation faces east, then anti-clockwise are Baptism (NE), Ordination (N), Matrimony (NW), The Crucifixion - the odd panel out (W), Last Rites (SW), Confession (S) and Mass (SE). Apart from the mutilations it is possible to see the detail of the C15th dress. The [overpowering] 1625 font cover (see gallery picture) was destroyed in the fire, we now have a much more appropriate cover which is the work of John Hayward, 1964, with scrolled arches and dove finial.

Words from British Listed Buildings, Simon Knott's Norfolk Churches, and Pevsner's Norfolk 1 Buildings with amendments from own on site observations.

Coordinates are for the west porch entrance.

Approximate Age of Artefact: C15th Relevant Website: Not listed

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