Preston Gubbals / Preston Gobalds / Preston Gubbalds / Prestone

There is an entry for this Preston [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SJ4919/preston-gubbals/] [accessed 18 July 2014]; this place was one of six Shropshire locations under the lordship of "Godebald the priest', and was in the tenancy of the canons of St. Alkmund of Shrewsbury, but no other mention of a church or cleric appears on the entry. Baptismal font illustrated in Anderson (1864) with an engraving from a drawing by Rev. J. Brooke. The CIVICTRUST WEB page of the Churches Conservation Trust notes a seventeenth-century baptismal font reported in this church. The font in Anderson (1864) has a set of mouldings at the upper rim, and the stem is splaying. The present font consists of an octagonal basin with plain sides and chamfered underbowl, raised on a stem, lower base and plinth, all octagonal and plain; base of later date, perhaps 19th-century [NB: it is not clear whether the artist who drew the font for Anderson's book, the Rev. J. Brookes, took liberties, or the font -if it is the same one- may have been re-tooled since]. The wooden cover is octagonal and flat; Victorian?. NB: changes to the font and cover may have taken place ca. 1866, the time of the major restoration work done to the church itself. Font not mentioned in in Newman & Pevsner (2006).