Lancaster No. 1 / Chercaloncastre / Lancastre / Launcastre

Lancaster [variant spelling] is one more than a score of places under a single entry in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SD4861/lancaster/] [accessed 1 April 2019]; the entry mentions neither cleric nor church in it. Bond (1908) notes a notable post-Reformation font cover dated to 1631. The font is noted in the Victoria County History (Lancaster, vol. 8 1914) as modern, with a pyramidal cover dated 1631. The Lancaster Priory web site [www.priory.lancs.ac.uk] notes: "The cover was provided in 1631. The font [base] was installed in 1848". Hartwell & Pevsner (2009) inform that the cover "was made from C17 carved panels, some. As the Rev. Peter Cavanagh has shown, recovered from the original backboard of the pulpit"; they do not mention the font itself. The wooden cover consists of two volumes: the lower half is octagonal with vertical panelled sides, the upper rim decorated with knows, etc.; the upper half is an octagonal pyramid, the sides panelled, ending in a knob finial. The cover raisng system appears to be counterweight. The font itself consists of an octagonal basin with vertical sides decorated with floral motifs inscribed in deeply-cut quadrangular panels; the lower basin side is moulded; the octagonal pedestal base is decorated with ornate panels alternating with the symbols of the four Evangelists. [cf. Index entry for Lancaster No. 2 for an earlier basin also in this church]