The form of the new font for St. Leonard’s is a contemporary, unconventional approach created to meet our design brief. We wanted to celebrate Baptism with a spiritual piece of design that was unusual and artistic. The re-ordering of the church has made our worship space more versatile, so it was important that the font should be both mobile and functional.
Designer Mel Howse’s response has resulted in a font whose sculptural form is itself symbolic, cylindrical, without beginning or end and the spirituality deepens within the crafted baptism vessel itself. Her technical approach to the piece covers both art and innovation using a combination of materials and surfaces.
The form of the font grows from a turned oak stand which rises tree-like from the floor, separated from the floor by a shadow. A cast acrylic collar joins the oak stand to the vessel, creating the notion that the baptism bowl is floating on water. The finale is the steel bowl, with vibrant colours in vitreous enamel spilling into the vessel’s interior. This is hand-worked and fired by Mel Howse. The interior of the vessel reveals a cacophony of swirling blues and turquoise, in contrast to the serenity of the font’s silhouette.
Up until the reordering of 2006, the font stood at the West end of the South aisle.
It previously stood under the tower, from where it moved in 1895 when the West door was reopened.
The large square basin of stone was in all probability a reproduction of an earlier one which (according to Dallas Edwards ‘A short history of St. Leonard’s Church Seaford, 1915’), disappeared in 1861-1862.
