Swavesey / Suauesy / Svaveseye

There are three entries for Swavesey [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL3669/swavesey/] [accessed 5 July 2016], neither of which mentions cleric or church in it. Cox & Harvey (1907) list a baptismal font of the Perpendicular period here, a noteworthy example. Kelly's Directory of this county for 1929 records a Perpendicular font in this church. Noted in Pevsner (1970): "Font. Octagonal, Perp[endicular], with traceried stem and underside of the bowl and cusped panels on the sides of the bowl." The Victoria County History (Cambridge…, vol. 9, 1989) notes: "There was a church at Swavesey, possibly a minster, by the late 11th century when Count Alan, lord of Richmond, gave it to the abbey of St. Sergius and St. Bacchus, Angers (Maine-et-Loire), which had founded a priory there by 1086. […] The church of ST. ANDREW, so called from the late 11th century […] The octagonal font is late medieval, with traceried panels and blank shields." Described and illustrated in the Cambridgeshire Churches web site: "The font is tall and elegant -- a slim Perpendicular octagonal bowl on a long tapering stem." Each panel of the octagonal basin has a decafoil window with a [now] blank shield in it; one of the sides has suffered damage from the rim down consistent with the removal of old iron staples from the cover hardware; the underbowl has thick mouldings (piping) marking the eight sides, the panerls themselves decorated with hexafoil windows; a horizontal moulding marks the upper end of the stem, also octagonal and with the same type of piping at the angles, each panel of the stem with an trefoil arch (some single, some double); the lower base is also octagonal and decorated with graded mouldings. The flat cover is perhaps 19th century, not the original one.