IQO ARCHITECTURAL STYLES IN FORDINGTOX CHURCH. 



"with two illegal ordinances issued A.D. 1643 and A.D. 1644 

 " by the Puritan Lords and Commons opposed to the Church 

 " and Crown. By these ordinances all crosses and crucifixes in 

 " churches, and all organs, fonts, altars, and tables of stones were 

 " commanded to be taken down and demolished." Communion 

 tables were also ordered to be removed, candlesticks to be 

 taken away, and all surplices utterly defaced, &c. Dowsing's 

 Journal of January, 1643, details the devastation committed on 

 the exteriors, as well as in the interiors, of one hundred and fifty 

 churches in Suffolk. Some of the acts were fanatical. In one 

 church, Elmset, the Commissioners, finding that the work had 

 been done before their visit, " rent apieces there the hood and 

 surplice." 



The font is of good Perpendicular design, but somewhat of 

 the regulation pattern. It is octagonal on plan and set upon a 

 4-feet stone platform. A cavetto mould and bead with carved 

 leaves in the centre of each return separates the lower part or 

 base (which is smaller) from the upper part or basin. It is 

 skirted with a spreading scotia. All the faces except two have 

 sunken panels, the base with single cusped-pointed panel, and the 

 basin with sunken cusped quatrefoils having a small shield in the 

 middle of each. It is covered down with a plain oak cover top. 



The jambs and arch moulds to the tower inside are very bold, 

 each return of the jambs being made up of the ogee fillet and 

 wave moulding, with an engaged shaft in the middle finished 

 with a cap at the impost, and the round of the ogee being 

 similarly finished. Supported on the cap of the shaft is a roll 

 and fillet moulding, up round the soffit of the arch. The ogee 

 and wave moulds finish on a splay at the base, and the shafts 

 have engaged bases. 



O O 



The upper part of the pulpit belongs to the Tudor period, and 

 is dated with P^liz'abeth's initial, and 34 for that year of her reign, 

 and the year 1592. These figures can easily be checked, as her 

 reign was from 1558 to 1603. This record is incised on one of 

 the inverted grid-iron shaped raised shields set in four of the 

 sides. 



