Mautby / Maltby / Maltebei / Malteby / Mauteby / Mawtby

There are three entries for Mautby [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/TG4812/mautby/] [accessed 28 May 2014], on eof which reports a church and churchlands in it. Blomefield (1805-1810) writes: "The church consists of a nave and a chancel covered with reed, and has a tower, the lower part round, the upper octangular, with one bell. [...] The Church is a rectory, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, [...] the prior of Merton in Surrey had a portion of tithe", and the earliest date reference to this church is 1307, the institution of "Thomas de Hykelyngge" as rector. The church, however, goes back to Norman times, as the base of the tower indicates. The present font here is listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Decorated period. Described in Pevsner & Wilson (1997) as Perpendicular, "with four shields and four quatrefoils". Baptismal font consisting of an octagonal basin of vertical sides decorated with deeply-cut blank quatrefoil windows and blank shields in quatrefoil windows in alternate panels; graded underbowl chamfer; raised on an octagonal pedestal, the sides of which are deeply cut between buttressed angles and decorated with a blind arcade of cinquefoil arches, while the lower end has tiny blank quatrefoil windows; the plain lower base is narrow and octagonal. Font dated in the local parish information to between 1300 and 1375. Raised on an octagonal plinth. The old wooden cover, perhaps of the 17th or 18th century, has the shape of an octagonal pyramid with slightly concave sides, the ribs at the angles crocketed all the way to the top.