Mitcheldean / Dean Magna / Dene / Great Dean / Micheldean / Mitchel Dean / Mitchell Dean

There is an entry for Mitcheldean [variant spelling] in the Domesday Survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SO6618/mitcheldean/] [accessed 20 May 2017], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. An illustration [Lysons' Magna Britannia ca. 1806?] shows a roughly hemispherical basin that had resulted from the cutting the original font and using it upside down [NB: we have no information about when the 'cutting' occurred; it is possible that the font had been damaged or bropen, and that the remaining part was re-used by re-cutting it to a roughly hemispherical shape]. Reported in Tymms (1834) as a baptismal font of the 12th century. Noted in Romilly Allen (1883-1884) as baptismal font of the Norman period in which appear reversed human figures. Listed as a Norman tub-shaped font in Tyrrell-Green (1928) with carved "figures that are intended to represent the Apostles, each being distinguished by his emblem." Tyrrell-Green (ibid.) states that the fonts at Belton, Hereford Cathedral, Micheldean (Gloucs.) and Rendcombe (Gloucs.) were "evidently produced by the same hand, or by the same school of workmen". Buck (1951) notes that "the Twelve Apostles" is a "subject is carved on over twenty other fonts in various parts of the country" and mentions those at Avington (Berkshire), Gloucester Cathedral, Micheldean and Rendcomb (Gloucestershire) and Chirton (Wiltshire) as examples of the group. 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 feet and head, the whole being reminiscent of the aesthetic concepts that lay behind the apostle figures of the Book of Kells, four centuries before." The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Gloucester, vol. 5, 1996) notes: "Mitcheldean church presumably originated as a chapel of Westbury-on-Severn church but had evidently become a parish church by 1223 [...] The Norman font, decorated with figures of the apostles standing in the niches of an arcade, had been mutilated by the late 18th century and the lower part had been turned upside down and a new bowl formed in it. The upper part was replaced in 1882 when the font was restored." Noted in Verey & Brooks (1999-2002): "Font. Late 12C, but only the anthemion frieze at the base and the lower parts of the figures are original; the rest had been lost by the late C18. A new upper psrt was executed in 1882, the figures of Apostles set beneath an arcade no doubt copied from one of several similar fonts (cf. Newnham)." On-site notes, and description in Gethyn-Jones (1979): the upper part of the basin, at least 39 cm of it, is a total restoration, so that the only original part is the bottom of the figures and the area of the base which contains the feet of the Apostles and the acanthus motifs. Gethyn-Jones (1979) lists this font as a cognate of the fonts at Newnham, Rendcomb and Hereford cathedral: the goblet-shape basin contains the figures for the twelve Apostles carrying books, some wearing eucharistic robes, St. Peter his key. Gethyn-Jones (ibid.) mentions that the rest of the basin may possibly have been reconstructed copying the one at Newnham-on-Severn.