Six Romanesque lead fonts from Gloucestershire, ongoing research

A short break from 100 Minories post-excavation allowed a day trip to St Lawrence church, Sandhurst, Gloucestershire to record their lead Romanesque font. The font is one of six surviving lead fonts which were all cast from the same mould in the mid twelfth century, and all are to be found in Gloucestershire. They were discussed by George Zarnecki in his 1957 book 'English Romanesque Lead Sculpture', but they have never been fully illustrated or described.

Romanesque font at St Lawrence Church, Sandhurst, Gloucestershire (click to enlarge)

100 Minories: post-medieval drains and sewers…

I've been spending the last few weeks checking through the records from the LP Archaeology excavations at 100 Minories in the City of London. It's been a nice opportunity to revisit parts of the site and take a proper look at some of what we all dug up over the last year. The site was located over the City Ditch, which gradually became infilled and was eventually built over in the 16th and 17th centuries. The whole site was then cleared and redeveloped en masse in the 1760s as part of a large, high quality Georgian development. One of my key interests on this site is in the development of post-medieval waste water and sewage management systems - or drains and sewers....

17th century brick cesspit cut by late 19th century stoneware sewer