62 DERBYSHIRE FONTS. 



carefully executed. When last I saw this font, some six years 

 ago, it still was bedaubed with colours, which were once 

 considered to be the height of beauty in church furniture; 

 pillars, fonts, woodwork, monuments, etc., alike being either 

 painted with all the varied hues of the rainbow, or choked 

 up with successive coats of limewash. The use of whitewash 

 still continues, unfortunately, in the south-west of this country, 

 many fine old Devonshire churches being liberally plastered 

 with it, to their utter ruin, in so far as appearances are 

 concerned. 



MONYASH. 



This font is probably well advanced in the period known as 

 Decorated, but seems to possess more characteristics of this 

 style than the succeeding one, termed Perpendicular. The 

 chief points about it are the coat of arms, within a shield, on 

 the south side of the octagonal bowl, and the curious animal 

 whose head projects from beneath the projecting bowl on the 

 east side. 



The stem consists of five clustered shafts — a large central one 

 and four small side shafts. This arrangement would be rare, 

 if not unique, in a font of the Perpendicular style, and in- 

 clines one to the belief that it was constructed in the earher 

 period. 



The coat of arms is that of Bovili,i the armorial bearings 

 being a fess between three saltircs eyigrailed. 



The curious semi-human, semi-bestial face which has been 

 mentioned, has a counterpart in the angle corbel in the tower 

 of Darley Dale Church. On the North-east and South-east 

 pillars of the clustered shafts, which form the stem of the font, 

 are the creature's forepaws and legs, while the hind legs project 

 from the North and South sides of the stem. 



The enormously heavy and ponderous-looking base should be 



noticed. 



1 Though not the proper armorial bearings of this family, they were thus 

 borne by Bishop Bovill. Their presence here is perhaps owing to the 

 marriage of Rich. Biackwell with the Bovill heiress. 



