Hitchin – St. Mary’s Church (Font)

This is something of an impressive font located at St. Mary’s Church in Hitchin. It’s made from Ketton stone and is thought to date to around 1470 and it has representations of the 12 apostles of Jesus. There was once an additional step here, but the Victorians decided that they’d remove that.

And the font cover, which certainly couldn’t be said to be under-stated.

The quality of the carving is high but then the Puritans came along in the 1640s and knocked the heads of the apostles off. I won’t compare them to any other recent political movement, but the Puritans decided that the Reformation wasn’t done properly and so they went full steam into a more extreme version of it. But, I like the history behind this, it’s something of a survivor and it retains its place in the centre of the church.