Coventry No. 1 / Coventru / Coventrv

There is an entry for Coventry [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SP3379/coventry/] [accessed 26 February 2015], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. An octagonal mounted font of the 15th century in the Perpendicular style described in Paley (1844) as "large and beautiful" and being "in good preservation"; his illustration shows a basin whose sides have a double quatrefoil panel on each of the sides, at least one of them with a shield containing a cross motif superimposed. The underbowl is chamfered and has sixteen little rosettes on it. The octagonal stem of the base has a blind arcade of sixteen Ogee arches, two per side. The plinth has four levels, three steps and the priest's stone on top. Cox & Harvey (1907) describe the font as "the best 15th-cent. font in Warwickshire" and Paley's engraving of it as "remarkably good". Described in Woodhouse (1909): "The font is the original pre-Reformation one of the fifteenth century, which was removed by the Puritans in 1645 (though devoid of sculpture), and brought back after the Restoration. It stands on three steps, is panelled on bowl and stem, and rather brilliantly adorned with gold and colour." The Victoria County History (Warwick, vol. 8, 1969) notes: "Holy Trinity was in existence at least by 1113 as a chapel claimed by Coventry Priory and serving the tenants of what was by then the Prior's Half of Coventry. [...] The font was taken down in 1645 [...] The octagonal stone font of 15th-century date was re-coloured in 1855."