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Plate 3.25: Fonts at Ufford and Sudbury (Original Explanatory Account)
1 media/vm1-02-cropped.jpg 2020-08-08T23:28:19+00:00 Quanah Leija-Elias fc578bb41a53b12f2a08253bc8cc52547b2ff8bb 31 14 Original Explanatory Account for Vetusta Monumenta, Plate 3.25. plain 2025-01-03T19:08:49+00:00 Mary-Claire Sarafianos b64b0f9cad2b567cca4c9f2022b28f5bd47876a6
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VOLUME III.
Plate XXV.
THE two fonts represented in this plate are remarkable for their beautiful covers made of oak, and embellished in the richest style of Gothic ornament.
Read more/less...The first of these, in Ufford church, described in Archaeologia, vol. X. p. 206, was probably the gift of the UFFORD family, which was settled in that parish from the reign of Henry III. and gave several earls to the county. Robert, grandson of the first Robert who occurs here, was advanced to the dignity and title of Earl of Suffolk, II E. III. and distinguished himself by eminent achievements till his death, which happened 1368, 42 E. III. He was succeeded by his second son William, who also took an active part in our foreign wars, and died suddenly 1382, 5 R. II. without issue; and this manor, with others was assigned to his issue Isabel for her life, which ended 1416, 4 H. V.1. To one of these two noblemen may be ascribed this monument of antient magnificence, which bears their arms, S. a cross engrailed O.
The other font is in the church of St. Gregory at Sudbury, in the fame county of Suffolk; and though it bears no arms whereby its donors may be ascertained, it may not be an improbable conjecture to refer it to the munificence of archbishop Sudbury, who was a native of this town, and having, when bishop of London, with his brother John, purchased this church of the nuns of Eaton in Warwickshire 1374, and next year procured the same to be made collegiate, and founded, in the place where his father’s house stood, a goodly college for six secular priests, one of whom was to be warden or master2, the bishop built the chapel or upper end of the church, as appeared by this inscription in the window in Weever’s time3.
Orate pro domino Symone Theopold, alias Sudbury, qui istam capellam fundavit A. D’ni MCCCCLIV, in commemoratione omnium animarum dat, dicat, consecrat. [Pray for lord Simon Theopold, alias Sudbury, who founded this chapel in the year of our Lord 1454, [which] in commemoration of all souls he gives, dedicates, consecrates.]
In the same chapel Weever saw “a marble stone four yards long and two broad, sometimes “inlayd all over with brasse, under which the inhabitants say that Theobald, alias Sudbury, lyeth interred, which may be true, for howsever he hath his tombe in the cathedrall church, Canterbury, of which he was archbishop; yet may be perhaps only his cenotaph, or honorarie funerall monument.”
Whether this tomb belonged to the archbishop, or any of his family (archbishop Chichele’s family were buried under handsome brasses still ramianing in Higham Ferrars church), it is certain that his head is still preserved here in a grating in the said chapel, and supposed to bear the marks of the violet death which he suffered from Was Tyler’s mob 1381.
Admitting these conjectures to be well founded, these two font will nearly coæval. The style of the archbishop’s monument Canterbury is peculiarly light and airy, and not unlike that of the cover of the font at St. Gregory’s4.
Such covers to fonts seem to be confined to the Eastern counties.
1 Dugdale, Baronage, II. 47-49.
2 Tanner, Not. Mon. p. 509.
3 Fun. Mon. 743.
4 Dart’s Canterbury, 154.
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Mr. Vertue had seen several, richly adorned and carved. He engraved, 1753, at the expence of Henry Barker, patron of the church, a font with similar cover in the church of Worlingworth, Suffolk, from a drawing made in 1739 by Nicholas Revett, esq. But either the work itself, or the drawing, are much inferior to those here exhibited.
Read more/less...The church of Worlingworth belonged to the abbey of St. Edmunsbury, and it is not improbable this font and cover were made at the expence of some abbot about the same period with the other.
The font at Ashdon in Essex, near Saffron Walden, has a rich wooden cover of this kind, and is also itself inclosed in a pannelled cafe, one of the sides serving as a door, as if the more completely to guard it against sorcery or superstitious abuses1.
The font at Luton, besides standing under an octangular arched canopy of stone, is large enough to contain ten persons round the bason2.
Mr. Blomefield describes, at Kenninghall3, a cover of a font neatly carved, and old, which seemed to have been put up with the screens between the nave and chancel at the expence of the one Oakley, whose device, an oaken branch and laye under it, and carved in the arch. The cover of Stow Bardolph font is of wood, carved and painted, but with the arms of Hare upon it, and the date 16254; this is probably more in the style of Sir James Westminster, and many others. Weever5 has given a good representation of a very rich modern cover of the font at East Winch in the same county, erected by some of the Howards, whose arms, with others, are carved on it. Somewhat similar to this, but less ornamented, is that at Winterborn Whitchurch, Dorset6.
R. G.
1 See Archaeologia, X. 206. 222.
2 Steele, in Biblioth. Top Brit. N0 VIII. and thence correct the account of its being wooden in Arch. X. 206.
3 I. 148
4 IV. 170.
5 P. 848.
6 Hutchins.