Unwrapping England's 'oldest' font

Legend has it that King Ethelbert, the Saxon King of Kent, was baptised by St Augustine in the ancient font at St Martin's, Canterbury. This would make it England's oldest font still in use - alas as with most great legends the evidence does not fully support the story. St Martin's is considered to be the oldest English church in continuous use and is associated with St Augustine and Queen Betha - The location of King Ethelbert's baptism is not precisely know and sadly the font is not considered old enough.

Regardless of this historical disappointment the font deserves it own reverence and further investigation. It is clearly old, has a quirky appearance and is an unusual form for a font. The carvings are generally considered to be from the Norman period (so only missing St Augustine by a few hundred years, but still making it venerable) and the construction is more akin to wall construction such as for a well head rather than a monolithic carved stone commonly used for fonts.

The font was a good candidate for me to practice using photogrammetric modelling software. Using only photographs it is possible to stitch together a rough volumetric model. As an architect it is useful to take a 3d snapshot to take back to the studio allowing study of the original remotely. Like all photographs it lacks definition (and context) that can only be gained by on location, but it adds an extra dimension to using photographs alone. It also has the extra benefit, with model viewers, of giving others a chance to view it remotely too. The model below was built using RealityCapture and is displayed on the Sketchfab website.

Using the Sketchfab UI notes and images can be added to the model view. In this instance I have paired the model with historic drawings and photographs featuring the font. The model can be orientated to the same viewport allowing comparison of the images. The position of the font in the church may have changed over time. Victorian and Edwardian photographs show the font in its current positions and largely unchanged, whilst an earlier print of the church shows it positioned in the centre of the nave. On closer examination of the print it will be seen that the artist has used some artistic licence and the decoration of the font is shown in a more gothic form.

The fonts is constructed from five stone courses. The base, or first course, is carved from a single block of stone with a simple chamfered edge stepping in to form a kerb around the font. There are then three courses of carved stone tapering inwards towards the top. The middle of these courses is slightly higher than the others. The carved top course steps out forming a cornice to the whole assembly. Within these stones a water basin is formed from a lead bowl dressed over the top stones.

I used the export capabilities in RealityCapture to create a flat elevation image of the model, repeated many times at incremental angles to build up an elevation of the font in the round. These images were then pieced together in Adobe Photoshop to get a single elevation or map of the fonts surface. Due to the difference in diameter between the top and bottom of the font there is some distortion in the image.

Seeing the stones of the font laid out, allowing ones eye to drift over the surface, brings to light more readily the differences, consistencies and inconsistencies in the patterns of the carvings. Questions arise over what is the correct order of the stones, the font may have been taken down and rebuilt many times, and where are the stones that appear to be missing from the pattern. One stone shows six interlocking rings - nearly a match for the five rings of the modern Olympics. Academic study of the font continues and it will be good to report back more on the history of this unusual artefact as it is uncovered.