Every day in English Tourism Week, we are sharing one of our ‘Top Ten Tourist Treats’ here at Bradford Cathedral.
Today’s treat is the Tudor oak font canopy
This beautiful wooden canopy above our Victorian font is one of our oldest and most striking features. It is believed to date back to 1536 and would have been designed and used as a lid for the font, actually resting on a previous font that would have been here at that time, in the days when the holy water used for baptism was kept in the font.
The time period during which this font canopy was placed here, in the 1500s during the reign of Henry VIII, was actually a great period of change in churches, with Henry VIII’s break from the Pope and Rome, the Dissolution of the Monasteries etc. It is thought that our font canopy must have been taken down and perhaps hidden away for a time to ensure that it wasn’t destroyed or spoiled.
Why not visit us to see this beautiful and historic artefact in situ here at Bradford Cathedral?