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An Altar to the Mothers in Lund Church, near Kirkham, Lancashire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2012
Extract
Mr. F. H. Cheetham, F.S.A., first drew my attention to the Roman altar in use as a font in Lund church, and persuaded me to write this note, the justification for which lies in the fact that the interesting reliefs on the sides have never yet been reproduced, though that on the front has been published. The back is plain, and there is no trace of any inscription.
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1933
References
page 30 note 1 Roman altars in use as fonts are recorded (Bond, F., Fonts and Font Covers, 1908, p. 99)Google Scholar at Chollerton, Haydon Bridge, and St. John Lee, all in Northumberland. Haverfield in The Antiquary, xxviii, 1893, p. 162, mentions an uninscribed stone used as a font in St. Andrew's church, Bishop Auckland, but does not say that it is an altar.Google Scholar
page 30 note 2 Victoria County History, Lancashire, vii, 166. There is, however, no mention of the altar in the text. This omission must be due to the fact that the Roman section of the V.C.H. Lancs, has not yet been written.
The altar is mentioned in the Topographical Index of Harrison's Archaeological Survey of Lancashire, 1896, but no note of it appears in Watkins's Roman Lancashire. It is, however, mentioned in Our Country Churches and Chapels by Atticus (Hewitson, A.), Preston, 1872, p. 302Google Scholar, where it is stated that ‘on the left side and at the back there were once similarly carved figures; but many years ago, in order to make the block fit against the wall of the old church, they were knocked off’. This may be disregarded. In itself it is improbable that there were figures on the back; no kind of trace of any carving has been left, and the inclusion of the left side (fig. 3), where the figures are still visible, robs the statement of any weight. The only other references known to me are those in Fishwick's and Hardwick's histories quoted below.
page 30 note 3 For a discussion of this cult, which seems to have been indigenous to either Cisalpine Gaul, or Lower Germany, or both, and to have been brought to Britain by the legions, see Ihm, Max, Bonner Jahrb. lxxxiii, 1887, pp. 1–200Google Scholar; Haverfield, F., Arch. Æl. xv, 1892, pp. 314–39Google Scholar; and Roscher, Lex d. Myth., p. 2465, s.v. Matres, Matronae, Matrae.
page 31 note 1 Ihm, loc. cit. no. 35; Wylie, Archaeologia, xlvi, 171, pl. v.
page 31 note 2 Ihm, loc. cit. no. 32; Wylie, loc. cit. 175.
page 32 note 1 Fishwick, History of the Parish of Kirkham, Chetham Society, vol. 92, 1874, p. 56.Google Scholar For the records of the thirty sworn men of Kirkham, cf. ibid. p. 88 ff. Cf. also Hardwick, History of Preston, 1857, p. 542.
page 32 note 2 Dr. Douglas A. Allan, Director of the Liverpool City Museums, tells me that the stone from which the altar was cut is a carboniferous grit which may well have been quarried in the neighbourhood of Clitheroe.