North Grimston Baptismal Font

Description

Described by Nikolaus Pevsner in 1972 as "a mighty and barbaric piece," the baptismal font at North Grimston (E. Yorkshire) dominates the nave of its contemporary early 12th-century church. The drum of North Grimston has a cable molded rim and a series of scenes within an arcade: Christ’s Descent from the Cross, the Last Supper with Christ enthroned, a geometric panel, and an ecclesiastical figure commonly attributed as St Nicholas after the medieval dedication of the church. The sheer size of the North Grimston font—nearly a metre in diameter—advertised the expense of quarrying and transporting the calcareous grit (finegrained sandstone) from appropriately sized beds in North Yorkshire.