Painswick / Wiche

There is an entry for Painswick [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SO8609/painswick/] [accessed 18 June 2018]; it mentions a priest but not a church in it, though there probably was one there. Described and illustrated in Bond (1908) as an octagonal mounted baptismal font dated by and inscription to 1661. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Gloucester, vol. 11, 1976) notes: "A priest was recorded at Painswick in 1086 [...] and the church there was granted to Llanthony Priory by Hugh de Lacy before 1096. [...] The parish church of St. Mary [...] apparently occupies the site of the church recorded in the late 11th century [...] The oldest part of the fabric appears to be the north chapel, the manorial chapel, which was built in the late 14th or early 15th century. [...] The parish registers survive from 1547." There is no mention of a font in the VCH entry for this parish. Noted in Verey and Brooks (1999-2002): "Font. Octagonal, dated 1661, carved with the churchwardens' initials and typical decorative motifs." The font is made of stone and the outer surface is divided into sections, cartouche-like: eight on the basin sides, eight on the underbowl, eight on the upper base and eight on the lower base; the octagonal plinth is plain and has a "priest's stone" prolongation; under the rim there is crenellation or chequered pattern ornamentation; some of the panels on the basin sides and on the underbowl have a Tudor rose motif in them; others have rings (?), square flowers or inscriptions; the two panels with inscriptions occur on the corresponding sides of the basin and underbowl; the upper inscriptions are said to represent the initials of churchwardens and appear framed in shields; the lower one, "CW" may stand for "Church Wardens"; the date is likely to be that of the installation of the font [cf. Inscription area]; the panels on the base are all plain. The wooden cover has a flat two-volume platform on which are four vertical scrolls around a central pivot, in the manner of Jacobean covers. [NB: we have no information on the earlier font of the 11th-century chruch here -- the churches and/or chapels of Painswick's hamlets of Edge, Sheepscombe and Slad are all modern].