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The font, which incorporates a 12thc. fragment, stands in an extension of the nave dating from 1961; there is no other Romanesque sculpture in the building.
East Dean, but no church, is mentioned in the Domesday Survey.
The dedication of the church is cited by Drummond-Roberts in 1935 as St Swithin and St Jude.
The fragment was found in 1887, supporting one of the tie-beams of the nave roof (although said by Drummond-Roberts to have been found in a farmyard). The designs of the upper and lower borders resemble those of the fonts at St Anne, Lewes and Denton, both of which have a central band of basketwork.
M. F. Drummond-Roberts, Some Sussex Fonts Photographed and Described, Brighton 1935, 31.
Rev. A. A. Evans, `Three Sussex Fonts', Sussex County Herald, 1 May 1920.
J. Morris and J. Mothersill (ed.), Domesday Book: SussexI Chichester 1976, 9.44.
I. Nairn and N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Sussex, Harmondsworth 1965, 45, 491.
A. K. Walker, An Introduction to the Study of English Fonts with Details of those in Sussex, London 1908, 52-53.
