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I Location

II General Description

The present church, consisting of chancel, nave, S aisle and W tower, is built of flint. Details such as window tracery date to the 14th and 15thc., with some Victorian restoration. The font is the is the only feature with Romanesque sculpture in the church and presumably survives from the building's earlier history, perhaps represented by the N nave wall, pierced in the 14thc. to receive windows with reticulated tracery and deep, undressed embrasures.

V Furnishings

1. Fonts

(i)

At the W end of the nave. Dramatically remodelled, perhaps more than once, this font now has an octagonal basin whose N, S, E and W faces resemble the semicircular shields of a giant cushion capital. The curved lower edge of the shields is defined by a groove and the short cones are carved with waterleaf. Only the E shield is decorated. It is carved with a circle containing a trefoil, the stem of which divides to form a pair of symmetrical scrolls. The remaining four faces of the basin appear to be the chamfered corners of what was originally a square bowl. The key to this is the tall pyramidal spur projecting from each of these faces. The continuous roll at the bottom of the basin reflects the structure of the substantial support which comprises a large central cylinder with attached colonnettes at NE, NW, SE and SW angles. The NW colonnette has double-strand cable moulding, the finer strand carved with drilled beads. The SW colonnette is plain. Those on NE and SE have been carved with, respectively, a female and a male head. This work is modern. The supports rest on a square block with continuous attic base mouldings following the line of the central cylinder and attached colonnettes, above a chamfered, square plinth. The entire structure rests on a modern, tall, square support. The basin and the lower components of the font are of different stone types and are also differently finished, the basin being much smoother than the support which shows coarse tooling marks. There are repairs to the upper edge of the basin.

Dimensions

VII History

Winfarthing, in the Half-Hundred of Diss, was held as a manor by King Harold's freeman, Algar, before 1066. After the Conquest, Diss was held from the king by Godric. The manor possessed two hunting parks for the lord's use, and was thus unusually well endowed in having this facility.

VIII Comments/Opinions

The font appears to be Romanesque, recut in the 19thc., it presumably originally resembled the font at South Acre, Norfolk (Bond 1908, 294). According to Pevsner, the basin is 19thc.

IX Bibliography