Clifton Hampden

No entry for Clifton Hampden found in the Domesday survey. Paley (1844) cites an article in 'Archaeologia (vol. XI: 122) which mentions a lead font "at Clifton, near Dorchester, Oxfordshire. The Gentleman's Magazine issue of November 1844, however, informs on an event that took place on 9 October of the same year: "The new church of Clifton Hampden, near Abingdon, was used for the first time for the performance of public worship [...] The pulpit, altar, and font, are of stone, from the chisel of Mr. Cox." The Ecclesiologist (vol. 67, August 1849: 80) reports: "the old font, wich was superseded by a new one on the model of East Meon, is desecrated by being placed sun-dial fashion in the church-yard." [NB: a letter dated 11 September 1848 from Edward A. Freeman published in the following issue, The Ecclesiologist (vol. 68, August 1848: 128), remarks that the font in the churchyard was "a modern one, utterly incapable of immersion". Noted in Cox (1875), in Andre (1882) and in Lethaby (1893) also as a lead font. Unfortunately this is the font reported in Bond (1908) as "melted down by the vicar and churchwardens [...] because it was unshapely". The Victoria County History (Oxford, vol. 7, 1972) notes: "The 19th-century font of early Gothic style replaces a leaden one melted down and used to repair the roof in the early 19th century". There is no mention of any font in Sherwood & Pevsner (1974). The present [June 2009] font is actually a square basin raised on five columns, of neo-Norman design, but of 19th-century date.