Standon nr. Bishops Stortford / Standone / Staunden / Staundon / Stondon

There is an entry for this Standon [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL3922/standon/] [accessed 26 October 2016]; it mentions a priest but not a church in it, though probably was one there. Cox & Harvey (1907) list a baptismal font of the Early English period here. Described and illustrated in Bond (1908) as a freestone baptismal font of the 13th century; the basin is octagonal and ornamented with a pair of parallel vines, described in Bond as "continuous tendrils of foliage", which he sees as traces "of the favourite interlacings of Romanesque". The base is also octagonal with vertical sides continuing those of the basin, but hollowed all around to leave an open arcade and the view of the central shaft. Noted in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, Hertfordshire (1911): "Font: bowl, with bands of horizontal foliage, 13th-century, stem modern, but bases of shafts apparently orginal." The Victoria County History (Hertford, vol. 3, 1912) notes: "The church of Standon was granted by Gilbert de Clare to the Knights Hospitallers probably at the beginning of the 12th century [...]. Before 1280 the church was served by a vicar [...] The earliest part of the existing church is the chancel, which dates from about 1230–40. [...] The font has an octagonal basin, round which are carved in relief two rows of continuous foliage, probably of early 13th-century work; the stem is modern, but the original bases of detached shafts remain." In Pevsner & Cherry (1977): "Font. A very interesting early C13 design; octagonal, with two horizontal wavy bands of stylized leaves running around the bowl."