"Font at High Bickington." Devon Notes and Queries 2 (1905) : 145-147.
One of the best examples of a Norman font in Devonshire may be seen in the parish church of St. Mary, High Bickington, some nine or ten miles southward of Barnstaple. Apathy and neglect, however, in years past, and coats galore of whitewash upon even thicker ones of stucco and cement, apparently applied with almost insane persistency by successive generations of well meaning but misguided and unappreciative churchwardens, had rendered it anything but fair to see. Latterly, ominous cracks occurred, suggesting that at no distant period of time the old relic and sturdy Christian symbol that had stood there for nearly a thousand years, would fall in fragments to the ground. Happily, the Rev. Ernest Walter Field, M.A., rector of Petrockstowe, and Rural Dean, came to the rescue, and by his advice the font was placed in the hands of Mr. Harry Hems, and was tenderly removed to Exeter, bound together with cords, for it was then in no less than 45 pieces. By constant and unwearying work in course of time all the sham stucco and plaster work were removed, and the original stone left standing out in precisely the same condition as it was originally when the 11th century mason looked on his completed work and pronounced it good. As a rule, ordinary fonts consist of three distinct stones : the bowl, the supporting column, and the base. At High Bickington, however, the font is formed of two only, the joint occurring in the midst of the central circular column—a treatment, we believe, to be almost, if not quite, unique in mediaeval masonry. It is made out of rough local stone, in texture not unlike that procured from the celebrated Doulton quarries in the adjacent county. The bowl in shape is what is known as a cushion capital, i.e., has its sides truncated, so as to form a square at the top. Curiously, the stem below is not situated in the middle of the bowl, one cant of the latter projecting considerably more than the other three do. The whole is ornamented with the severe and singular-notched and nicked enrichment characteristic of the Norman period. The moulding below the supporting shaft is cabled. Much of the damage to the stonework had evidently been caused by the use of iron cramps, some of them of considerable age, let in to hold the fractured portions together, and which by oxidation have helped to burst the stone. Of these deadly and most questionable aids to constructional security, Mr. Hems took out no less than sixteen pounds and a half weight of actual metal, all of which gaunt evidences of what not to do are now carefully preserved in the strong chest in the vestry. The original lead lining to the bowl, of whose actual existence, prior to the present conservative renovation, there was little or no evidence, now stands in its proper place, exactly as it did formerly, and although sadly hacked and much worn in places, it is happily preserved intact. The whole has been placed upon a plain foot-pace of grey Dartmoor granite, and the sacrament of baptism was once again performed in the restored font by the Rev. Cecil Vaughan Wansborough, M.A., the rector of High Bickington, on Sunday, June 1st, 1902, the Feast of St. Nicomede, Priest and Martyr, who, tradition says, was beaten to death with leaden plummets on that day, in the year of grace 90.