Excavation, recording and watching brief during conservation project on the Tournai marble font in the nave The Tournai marble font at Winchester Cathedral was made almost 900 years ago, and has been a treasured object through all that time. It is a remarkable piece of Romanesque sculpture, created in Flanders (modern-day Belgium) by a specialist workshop in the Tournai quarries. Only eight of these fonts are known in England - Winchester's is the finest. Its aesthetic qualities, however, should not and cannot mask its primary purpose: to be the focal point in the welcome of people (primarily children) into the Christian faith. That is still how the font is used today. Its condition, however, had become a real cause for concern - particularly the deleterious effects of rising moisture on its core and surfaces. After several years of detailed study and consideration, 2024 has seen a major project to conserve and clean the font itself while also carrying out work to counteract the long-term issue of damp rising through the ground and into the stonework. Archaeology was an integral part of the project from the start, with small-scale trial excavations in 2012 and 2022 being followed by a full excavation of the area around the font in 2024. Subsequently the conservation work was monitored and recorded, especially during the removal of each corner pier - one at a time, starting with the two Beer stone replacements and moving on to the two originals of Tournai marble. Excavation uncovered the sequence by which the font was re-erected in this location. The ground had been prepared carefully, in every possible sense. Whatever existing floors or features there may have been here, in the middle bay of the arcade between the nave and the north aisle, were removed and replaced with a new raised dais, with an artificial platform of stone rubble supporting the font itself at its centre. The few artefacts in the loose mortar and rubble make-up around the platform suggest that the process took place in the at the end of the 14th or start of the 15th century, when the old west end of the Cathedral was replaced at the same time as the whole western arm was being re-cased in Perpendicular style. The font had been a central feature of the old west end, but had to be moved: evidence for the effects of this was found during the conservation work, and again some seemingly mundane finds (two pieces of roof tile) support the c 1400 date of the move. Perhaps the most fascinating find was a small quartz crystal deliberately placed between the north-eastern pier and central column which supported the font bowl. This is likely to have been an act of ritual/religious import, but exactly what is unknown.
Keevill et al. (Mon,) studied this question.