Histon No. 1 / Histone

There are five entries for Histon [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL4363/histon/] [accessed 28 June 2016], none of which mentions cleric or church in it. Paley's Guide (1844) notes: "The font is Perpendicular, with quatrefoil panels." Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Perpendicular period, a noteworthy example. Mentioned in Kelly's county directory for 1929. In Pevsner (1970): "Font. Octagonal, Perp[endicular], with quatrefoil panels." [NB: Kelly (1929) further notes the demise of a nearby church: "There were anciently two churches in this parish, St. Andrew's and St. Etheldreda's, but the latter, which stood west of St. Andrew's, about a furlong distant, was sacrilegiously pulled down in 1600 by Sir Francis Hinde, then lord of the manor, and the materials used to build his house at Madingley: in 1874, on the removal of the long unfinished gallery at the end of Madingley Hall, portions of moulded and traceried stone work formerly belonging to St. Etheldreda's were discovered, and re-incorporated in the chancel of St. Andrew's on its restoration."]. The Victoria County History (Cambridge…, vol. 9, 1989) also notes the existence of two parishes and churches here: "The two parish which existed in Histon until the early 17th century were evidently founded on the demesne and the tenanted parts of the episcopal manor. They were distinguished by their dedications to St. Etheldreda and St. Andrew respectively in the early 13th century […] unlike similar cases in East Anglia, […] the two did not share a single churchyard. […] In the late 12th century a clerical family controlled one or both : Peter the dean of Histon, first referred to c. 1160, […] witnessed a document dated 1177 × 1189 in the company of his brothers Brice, parson of the church of Histon, and Simon the priest of Histon […] The church of ST. ANDREW, so dedicated by 1217 […] derives from a smaller 12thcentury church in scale with the existing tower; 12th-century fragments survive in the north transept and the west wall, most of them placed there during 19th-century restorations. […] In the 1890s the vicar, C. W. Underwood, gave a new pulpit, prayer desk, font, and glass for the chancel windows, all but the font made to his own designs." [cf. Index entry for Madingley for a font in that church claimed to have been originally from Histon].