Alderley / Aldredelie / Nether Alderley

There is an entry for [Nether] Aldersley [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SJ8476/nether-alderley/] [accessed 16 February 2015], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. An excursion on 29 September 1906 of members of the Society is reported in the Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society (xxiv, 1907: 167) visited Alderley Church, bear which was "the old yew tree, under which is the ancient font". Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the 14th century, the Decorated period, "now in the churchyard, was disinterred about 1830". Noted in Pevsner (1971): "Font. Circular, with large heads projecting, only two of four preserved. They point to the C14." Listed in Stocker (1997) as a "deep burial" instance in his listing of "font bowls reportedly discovered under church floors and set beneath successors." A 'wax-paper' photograph of this font is listed in the 1856 catalogue of the Photographic Society, Manchester [source: Photographic Exhibitions in Britain 1839-1865 [www.peib.org.uk]]. The Cheshire Antiquities page [www.thornber.net/cheshire/htmlfiles/netheralderley.html] [accessed 13 September 2006] posts a recent photograph of the font and notes that it was rediscovered in 1821 and reinstalled in the church in 1924. Two things should be pointed out about this font: that the heads protrude from the lower basin side, practically the underbowl, and that they look very much like those that adorn French fonts of the 12th-13th century; the design of the basin is rather an odd one: the sides are totally plain and the decoration -heads and foliage between them- are actually on the underbowl. [We are grateful to Craig Thornber, of www.thornber.net, for the photograph of this font]