On my first visit to the church, I was not very interested in what was going on; I was asleep most of the time. It was a long while ago.

 

More recently, I was drawn, guidebook in hand, to the Baptistery’s handsome font and its towering canopy. The intricate wooden structure is attributed to Nugent Cachemaille-Day, an up-and-coming architect who would design many striking churches, including the modernist St Nicholas, Burnage (1932). But the canopy is another story.

 

I am looking at the font itself. It is fashioned from Ketton stone, brought over from the village of that name, near Stamford, Lincolnshire. This porous limestone, good for carving and which weathers well, was used long ago in castles and cathedrals, and specified by Christopher Wren. The font’s six-sided design is neither fussily elaborate nor unworthily dull. It stands - perhaps unnoticed? - in its perfection.

 

Look at the six carved symbols on its sides: start with the I H S and move clockwise. The first is letters from the Greek word for Jesus; then comes the six-pointed Star of David (not mentioned in the Bible); XP are the first Greek letters for Christ. The Cross Keys ar St Peter’s symbol (Matthew 16); the universal sign of the faith follows, and then comes a curious little picture. Could it be something growing, wheat perhaps? Then there are the strange rectangular panels on either side, each with horizontal lines I could be wrong, but it puts me mind of a statuette dug up at Ur, Abraham’s city, of a ram caught in a thicket (Genesis 22). Someone might correct me; but this is not the main mystery.

 

The big one is this: when was the “new” font installed? The booklet says 1938. I say 1932. you might say, “What’s the difference?” I’ll tell you why.

On a sunny summer’s day in the year the Burnage church was consecrated, members of two family converged on Bolton Parish Church. The Norrises, mainly Methodists, came up by tram from Bradshaw. The Anglican Scroggs walked down from the first terrace in Bury New Road, past the corner hairdressers, under the railway viaduct, then up the slope of Church Bank where the piano shop seemed to teeter precariously on the other side. Inside, Carl and Carrie turned to look at the aisle down which they had walked together five years before, as they moved with the others towards the font. A white bundle was handed over to the young Lecturer, H Nightingale, who - according to family legend - announced that this was a kind of double christening: for the font as well as the baby (there might have been another baby as well). The solemn words of initiation were read and promises made. Ethelbert Scrogg, a god-parent and easygoing Bolton bobby, would interpret his spiritual duty as the handing over of an occasional half-crown. (The growing infant was always glad to meet his uncle Bert.)

 

So there we are. Perhaps someone with an eye for the records of BPC might be able to confirm one year or the other. But don’t ask me. As I said, I was asleep at the time.

 

Brian H Norris 

 

The Great Font Mystery