Deerhurst Baptismal Font

The Deerhurst baptismal font is one of the oldest surviving baptismal fonts in Britain. The medieval font from St. Mary's Church, Deerhurst (Gloucestershire), UK, is composed of two pieces of oolitic limestone with carved 9th-century spiral patterns in panels. The stem, now upsidedown, also displays an interlaced quadruped and snakes within the sequence of spirals. The font was dismantled during the English Civil War and both pieces of stone were reunited in the 19th century after spending time as a farm trough and garden ornament. Whether the bowl and stem were both originally designed as they appear today is a matter of some debate; scholars disagree if the bowl, stem, and a similar fragment from Elmstone Hardwicke were originally part of the shaft of an Anglo-Saxon standing cross, or existed as three distinct monuments. Bryant's recent Deerhurst lecture reconstructed the font based on the contemporary 9th-century color palette in the church in Bryant, "Making Much of What Remains," 2015, fig. 32, p. 29.