Newnham / Neuneham / Nevneham / Newnham-on-Severn

There is an entry for this Newnham [variant spelling] in the Domesday Survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SO6912/newnham/] [accessed 30 May 2017] but it mentions neither priest nor church in it. Cox & Harvey (1907) list a baptismal font of the Norman period in this church. Stone (1955) comments on the style of decoration: "The style of this group is further evidence of a mid-century geometrical return to barbaric tastes; pillars and arches are elaborately adorned with beading, chevron, spirals, and other patterns, while the draperies of the apostles have been reduced to flat linear patterns of lozenge, chevron, and parallel incisions on oblong blocks from which protrude feetand head, the whole being reminiscent of the aesthetic concepts that lay behind the apostle figures of the Book of Kells, four centuries before." The Victoria County History (Gloucester, vol. 10, 1972) notes: "The 12th-century font, archaeologically the most interesting feature […] has an arcaded bowl with somewhat rudely carved figures of the twelve apostles standing in the niches." [the footnotes in the VCH make reference to "Glos. Ch. Notes, 50" and "Trans. B.G.A.S. xxxiv. 199, 206"]. Noted in Verey & Brooks (1999-2002): "The font […] is an important Norman survival, mid-C12, and one of a group of four probably from the same workshop; the others are in Hereford Cathedral, Mitcheldean (largely a replica, and Rendcomb […] It has an arcade of twelve niches, the shafts enriched with a variety of Norman motifs, and containing the figures of the Apostles; bold hoeneysuckle ornament round the bottom." On-site notes: this goblet-shaped font has twelve niches around the basin sides, each containing the figure of an Apostle, somewhat rudely carved, with bare heads but bearded; some of them have eucharistic robes on; St. Peter holds a key and St. Paul a sword; all carry books in their hands; the pillars of the arcade are ornamented with Anglo-Norman motifs (foliage, chevrons, sunken stars, beaded-tape, etc.); the feet of the Apostles are actually carved on the upper base; the lower base has saw-tooth motif on it and is made of multiple blocks of stone.