Avebury / Aureberie / Avreberie

There is an entry for Avebury [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SU1069/avebury/] [accessed 28 February 2015]; it mentions a church and church lands in it. A font here is illustrated in a ca. 1810 watercolour by John Buckler [Wiltshire Heritage Library, accession no. DZSWS:1982.545]. Noted and illustrated in Britton's Dictionary of 1838 and in Paley (1844). The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine (vol. XIX (1881): 22) reports on an excursion to Broad Hinton [inter alia] by the members of the Society in which they visit the church and note "the rudely-carved, but most remarkable Norman font". Cox (1875) and Andre (1882) include this font [by mistake] in a list of the "leaden fonts of England". Lethaby (1893) writes: "The font at Avebury, Wiltshire, has often erroneously been stated to be of lead; there is a resemblance in the design, but it is of stone painted." Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a noteworthy baptismal font of the Norman period. Bond (1908) suggests that, although the sculpture on this baptismal font is "barbarous", the capitals are "of the cushion type of the twelve century" and places it with the Norman fonts. Holmes (1922) notes: "The font may be Saxon, though the ornamentation is of a later date". Tyrrell-Green (1928) writes: "the triumph of grace through the ministry of the Church is set forth by the figure of a bishop slaying the Serpent". Buck (1950) suggests it was originally a plain tub font "originally made in Saxon times, possibly during the Second Saxon Period, c. 880-980. It was then probably without any carving [...] and when in the twelfth century the Normans added aisles to the original Saxon nave and carved the south doorway they also carved what is now seen on the sides of the font", the latter addition done ca. 1125-1150, according to Buck (ibid.) Hutton (1957) suggests that this baptismal font may be Saxon "because of its un/Norman shape", although farther down he offers that it could be "early Norman, executed by a Saxon craftsman to a Norman's instructions." Noted in Pevsner & Cherry (1975), who remark on the "figure of a saintly bishop holding a crozier. His pleated cassock is a typically Norman feature." The Victoria County History (Wiltshire, vol. 12, 1983) notes: "The church held by Rainbold the priest in 1086 was probably newly built. [...] In 1139 it passed to Cirencester abbey, which held the church and advowson until the Dissolution. [...] church, known as All Saints' in the 13th century [...] but later as St. James's [...] The nave is of the 11th century [...] There is a tub font, possibly of Saxon origin, with carvings of the early 12th century." Pollard & Reynolds (2002) argue that "towards the end of the twelfth century, the church acquired its finely decorated font, which is almost certainly not Anglo-Saxon as it is often claimed [...], although certain stylistic details of the upper band of decoration do suggest Anglo-Scandinavian influence/survival/revival[...]. The form of the beasts, especially the heads, eyes and body, is reminiscent of pre-Conquest styles, as are the tails of the beasts as they wind their way down the body of the font into a floral scroll." By contrast, however, argue Pollard & Reynbolds (ibid.), the lower panel decoration is "all solid late twelfth-century work. The move to gothic style can be seen in the way in which the overlaid Romanesque blind arcades produce sharply pointed arches as a by-product." Pollard & Reynolds (ibid.) furtther argue that "there are strong archeological indications, however, that the decoration of the font is of two separate periods." On-site notes: the font is quasi-cylindrical and mounted; the inner basin well is lined with lead and has a wooden lid on top dated to 1940s in memory of Vicar Pooley. There is only one scene on the font, on the western side [NB: it was reported by Paley (1844) on the east side, but Buck (1950) suggests the font was moved in the 19th-century renovation] which shows a figure holding a bishop's staff (Christ or St. Michael or Bishop?) (the head is defaced) piercing the head of a serpent with the bishop's staff. A second serpent is carved on the right side of the figure. This is carved in the upper register along with an ornate acanthus motif encircling the remainder of the bowl on the upper register. The lower register of the bowl has a blind arcade of intersecting arches around the bowl. The bowl is separate from the base. The plinth is rectangular and projects with a priest's step. The drainage hole in the bowl is off-centre and there is evidence of a previous lid, with staples inserted into the upper rim. Both basin and base are round.