Noseley / Noseley Hall / Noueslei / Noveslei

There is an entry for Noseley [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SP7398/noseley/] [accessed 4 September 2015]; it mentions a priest, but not a church in it, though there probably was one there. Simpson (1828) describes a handsome font, the modern wooden base of which "was doubtless intended as an addition to its beauty, but the attempt has not been eminently successful"; Simpson (ibid.) dates the font to probably ca. 1344, although the chapel had had a baptismal benefit since 1306 [cf. ChurchNotes below]. Described in Cox & Harvey (1907): "the fine Decorated font at Noseley, Leics., has its shaft enclosed in open-work base, apparently coeval with the font itself." Bond (1908) lists it simply as a tub-font of the 14th century. Noted in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as one of group of 14th-century fonts in the Decorated style ornamented with varied patterns of blind tracery (in this group are: Offley in Herts.; Weobley in Hereford; Goadby Marwood and Noseley in Leics.; Barrowby, Carlton Scroope and Haydor in Lincs.; Northampton St. Peter's; Kiddington, Bloxham and Woodstock in Oxon.;Brailes in Warwick, and Patrington in Yorkshire). The Victoria County History (Leicestershire, vol. 5, 1964) notes: "Before 1081 Hugh de Grentemesnil granted the church of Noseley, with its tithes and 2 yardlands, to the abbey of St. Evroul (Orne)", but it appears that the parish church was in a marked state of decay by the 14th century, and in ruins by the early 16th; the former manorial chapel, continues the VCH (ibid.), "was built in the late 13th century", and became parish church as the former church became abandoned, itts finctions taken over by the former chapel. The VCH entry (ibid.) adds: "The octagonal font which stands at the west end of the chapel has a wooden base of 18th-century date. The font itself is rather later than the main part of the building and it has been suggested that it may have been Roger Martival's gift to the completed chapel [fn cites orig. source: "Arch Jnl. CXII, 185"]. Each face is carved with elaborate and deeply recessed tracery and crocketed canopies, and the font is by far the most intricate of the original fittings which are otherwise of a noticeable simplicity. The flat wooden font-cover was installed by the 1st Baron Hazlerigg in 1929". In Pevsner (1984): "Font. Octagonal, with two light-blank traceried arches under crocketed gables." The foot-less octagonal basin has and arcade of eight pointed arches with crocketed angles all around the sides; each arch contains a double-trefoil window with oculus in the spandrel; there are trefoil motifs also in the spandrels of the outer arches. The wooden base appears neither as dreadful as Simpson implies, nor as successful a match with the basin as Cox-Harvey claim [cf. supra]