Cambridge No. 5 / Grentebrige

Image copyright © Alan Murray-Rust, 2010

CC-BY-SA-2.0

Results: 2 records

view of church exterior - south view

Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Alan Murray-Rust, 2010

Image Source: digital photograph taken 26 December 2010 by Alan Murray-Rust [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2210771] [accessed 31 March 2016]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

view of church interior - nave - looking east

Scene Description: Source caption: "Interior of St Giles', Cambridge. The new church was completed in 1875 and, probably because of the constraints of the available site, is oriented closer to north-east than east. The rounded arch at the far end of the south aisle (partly concealed by a pillar) was preserved from an earlier church on the site."

Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Keith Edkins, 2012

Image Source: digital photograph taken 7 December 2012 by Keith Edkins [www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3251376] [accessed 31 March 2016]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-2.0

INFORMATION

FontID: 05173CAM
Church/Chapel: Parish Church of St. Giles [originally from the old church?]
Church Patron Saints: St. Giles [aka Aegidus, Egidus, Gilles]
Church Location: Castle Street, Cambridge CB3 0AQ
Country Name: England
Location: Cambridgeshire, East
Directions to Site: Located on the NE corner of Castle Street, at Chesterton Lane, N end of town
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Ely
Historical Region: Hundred of Cambridge
Font Location in Church: Inside the church
Century and Period: 15th century [basin partly re-tooled], Late Medieval [composite]
There are five entries for Cambridge [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL4458/cambridge/] [accessed 29 March 2016], none of which mentions cleric or church in it. Bond (1908) cites the diary of the infamous Dowsing, who recorded in it his having removed a dove "from the high loft of the font." [i.e., presumably the finial of the font cover]. The RCHM (Cambridge, 1959) notes: "plain octagonal bowl with moulded under-edge, octagonal stem and octagonal to square base, 15th-century, one gace of bowl retooled." Th Victoria County History (Cambridge..., vol. 3, 1959) notes: "St. Giles' Church contains traces of work that may be earlier than 1092, [...] the traditional date of its foundation by Picot in fulfilment of his wife's vow. [...] Its fabric was extensively remodelled in the early 19th century by the vicar, Professor William Farish, who enlarged the accommodation from 100 to 600 seats. [...] The resulting 'strange and repulsive medley' [...] was in its turn destroyed in 1875, when the present church was built, in which the only traces of the original church are the 11th-century chancel arch, and the 12th-century south doorway of the nave"; no font mentioned in the VCH entry]. There is no font mentioned in Pevsner (1970).

COORDINATES

Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal: 52.211241, 0.114934
Church Latitude & Longitude DMS: 52° 12′ 40.47″ N, 0° 6′ 53.76″ E
UTM: 31U 302893 5788457

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone
Font Shape: octagonal (mounted)
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: octagonal

LID INFORMATION

Notes: [cf. FontNotes re the removal of its finial by Dowsing]

REFERENCES

Bond, Francis, Fonts and Font Covers, London: Waterstone, 1985 c1908
Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the city of Cambridge, London: H.M. Stationary Office, 1959
Pevsner, Nikolaus, Cambridgeshire, Harmonsworth: Penguin, 1970