THE basic rule for baptismal fonts is that they should be as
near the principal entrance to the church as conveniently possible,
but there is no legal, liturgical, or theological bar to a font
being situated elsewhere, in exceptional circumstances.
Nevertheless, mere inconvenience did not amount to exceptional
circumstances which justified moving the font away from the
entrance, Chancellor Philip Petchey ruled in the Consistory Court
of Southwark, when granting a faculty for works to be carried out
to Holy Trinity, Wandsworth.
The petitioners - the Vicar, the Revd Gregory Prior, and two
parish wardens - sought a faculty for works which included the
moving of the font from its position in the south-west of the
church to a new place in the north transept, and for the baptistery
to be converted into a servery.
The application and force of Canon F1, as regards the location
of the font, had been subject to debate, and there appeared to be a
widely held view that, in essence, it no longer had any
application. The Chancellor said that he disagreed with that
view.
There was no legal bar to the font's being located elsewhere,
because the Canon envisaged that that the Ordinary might direct
that the font may be located elsewhere. But that did not affect
what was the preferred position under the Canon.
In practice, the Canon was not straightforward to apply, the
Chancellor said, since it might be thought that, all other things
being equal, the inconvenience of a font being positioned near the
principal door of the church might be circumstances out of the
ordinary so as to justify locating it somewhere else.
It might be inconvenient because it got in the way of use of the
west end of the church as a "welcome" area, or it obstructed
processions, or, if baptism was in the main service, it required
people to face the west door, or to process to the font, where
there might not be room for everybody. Moreover, it might be
possible to point to a change in the practice in the administration
of baptism so that it now took place in the context of the main
Sunday service.
But, said the Chancellor, "by its clear wording the Canon must
be taken to envisage that inconvenience of this kind would be
likely to arise, and would not, of itself, amount to circumstances
out of the ordinary," and "it was only if the inconvenience is
particularly marked, or if the compromise were too great, might it
amount to circumstances out of the ordinary justifying moving the
font".
In practice, it might be that it was only in respect of
Victorian or later fonts that it was likely that there would be
proposals for relocation. If the font was earlier, it was likely
that there would be a heritage objection to moving it. Thus the
natural reluctance that a Chancellor might feel to authorise moving
a font from the position it had occupied for centuries might well
be justified on heritage grounds, he said.
Part of the proposal was to create a "welcome area" at the west
end of the church. The font would not make that area less
attractive, but it would make it less useable. The Chancellor said
that that was a legitimate reason to justify the moving of the font
to the north transept, but it was not, of itself, a circumstance
out of the ordinary: many churches had fonts in comparable
positions.
What did seem to the Chancellor to make the case special was the
fact that, for the past 70 or so years, baptisms had taken place
from a portable font at the east end of the nave of this church. A
faculty did not appear to have been granted for the introduction of
the portable font. None the less, the Chancellor thought that, had
an application for a faculty been made 70 years ago, it would have
been appropriate to grant it, on the basis that baptism at the
existing enclosed font was not appropriate.
But, with or without a faculty, what had happened was that a
tradition had grown up of baptisms "at the front". In its new
position, the font would speak symbolically of the importance of
baptism in a more direct way than when it was enclosed within the
baptistery.
A faculty was granted for all the works to the church to be
carried out. The Chancellor said that the "carrying out of these
extensive works . . . makes it likely that the building will
survive into the future as a valued church of heritage
interest".