Market Overton / Horton / Marcat Overton / Marcateshoverton / Margat / Margret / Markedesoverton / Market Orton / Marketishoverton / Overtone / Overtune

There are two entries for [Market] Overton [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SK8816/market-overton/] [accessed 16 July 2015], neither of which mentions cleric or church in it, though there appears to have been one here [cf. infra]. Cox & Harvey (1907) list a baptismal font of the Norman period here. The Victoria County History (Rutland, vol. 2, 1935) notes: "The church stands on the site of a Roman camp, in the south-west portion of the rectangle, [...] and at the west end there survives a fine Saxon arch, which was preserved when the pre-Conquest church of which it formed part was rebuilt [...] probably dates from the latter part of the 10th or first half of the 11th century. [...] The first rebuilding appears to have taken place in the 13th century [...] The existing tower was probably erected in the 13th century on the foundations of an earlier structure the proportions of which suggest a forebuilding or porch. [...] Two pre-Conquest sculptured stones [...] are incorporated in the walling near the base. The tower, however, appears to have been remodelled in the 14th century [...] The font is of composite character, being made up of three portions, the uppermost square at the top, with moulded edge, and shaped to circular form with chamfered angles and a device of diagonal lines; it may be the upper part of a 12th-century capital. The plain circular middle portion rests on a later moulded circular base enriched with a well-carved inverted strawberry-leaf pattern."


Pevsner (1984) writes: "Font. A very weird combination of two large capitals, the foot an E[arly] E[nglish] stiff-leaf capital upside down, the bowl a big square Norman capital." The upper basin side has a band of short diagonal mouldings below a double horizontal moulding at the upper rim; below this band the basin is bucket-shaped, very irregular and, despite the suggestion in Pevsner [cf. supra], it is hard to believe that this was ever a functional capital; the base part has a band of scallop around the upper part and trefoil leaves below it; It is difficult to think that this piece may have ever existed originally in any other way. The connection between these two pieces appears to have been made or sealed- with lead; the basin is lead-lined and the lining covers all the upper surface of the basin. The wooden cover is square and appears modern.