Deeping St. James / East Deeping / Estdepinge

There are three entries for Deeping [St James] [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/TF1509/deeping-st-james/] [accessed 29 October 2018] none of which mentions cleric or church in it. Described and illustrated in Simpson (1828) as a baptismal font of the Norman period: "It is composed of Barnack stone, painted, but in good preservation"; referring to the drainage of the basin Simpson (ibid.) suggests that the basin well had originally been lead-lined and describes the drainage system as consisting of "two holes in the bottom, one in the centre, with four channels leading to it; the other towards the side, and very possibly not original." Noted in Paley (1844) as a baptismal font of low cylindrical shape decorated with sculpture. Knight (1867) reports a curious Norman font inside this church. The entry for this priory in the Victoria County History (Lincoln, vol. 2, 1906) notes that it was founded in 1139 and that it co-existed with the parish churches of St James' and St Guthlac's. At the Dissolution it was granted to the Duke of Norfolk. Listed in Cox (1907) as a noteworthy Norman font. The basin is cylindrical and its sides are ornamented with a blind arcade of round intersecting arches. Noted in Pevsner, Harris and Antram (1989): Font. Circular, Norman, with intersecting arches." The Parish web site [www.dsj.org.uk] describes the font as "a twelfth century gem of tub shape with interlaced Romanesque arcading", and illustrates the font with a wooden cover of graded shape, the font raised on a circular plinth, which may be the wooden platform referred to in Simpson above.