Stratford-upon-Avon No. 1 / Stradforde

There is an entry for Stratford[-upon-Avon] [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SP2055/stratford-upon-avon/] [accessed 28 November 2014]; it reports a priest but not a church in it, though there probably was one there. Neale (1825) reports the new font: "under the great [western] window is the font, a large fluted vase of blue marble, placed there at the commencement of the last century" [i.e., the 18th century] as the font in use at the time [ca. 1825], but adds a description and an illustration of a fragment of another font: "the remaining part of the ancient font of Stratford Church, which originally stood in the south side, opposite the door, nearly under the second arch of the nave from the west. It has been noticed that the font now in use was put up at the commencement of the last century [cf. supra], at which point this portion of the ancient one was removed to the residence, in Church Street, of Thomas Paine, the then Parish Clerk, who died in 1747. In this situation it remained until 1823; but having since its removal from the Church been applied to the ignoble purpose of a water cistern, until the present owner, Capt. Saunders, of Stratford, obtained possession of it, it had sustained considerable injury: although from the cavities made for receiving an iron brace, or hoop, it appears to have suffered more severely from the destructive hand of fanaticism, at the period of the Civil Wars, when several other ornaments of the Church were mutilated or demolished.-- It is conjectured that the font was set up in the reign of Edward III. [i.e., 1312-1377], when John de Stratford, archbishop of Canterbury, erected the south aisle in which it was situated; but this mutilated relic (of which the base and shaft are lost) derives greater interest from the probability, if not the certainty, of its having been the font wherein the Bard of Avon and his family were baptized." Bond (1908) relates the sad situation of the font in which William Shakespeare was baptised: "In the south aisle of the church at Stratford-upon-Avon are the battered remains of a famous font -that in which Shakespeare was baptized; it was turned out of the church in the eighteenth century, and was used as a water cistern till 1823". Tyrrell-Green (1928) expands that this font "was removed to the churchyard in the eighteenth century, and after lying neglected for some time was carried away and made to serve secular uses. In the last century it stood in the grounds of the Shakespeare Hotel, but has now been recovered and replaced in the church, though its mutilated condition renders it unfit for use." The Victoria County History (Warwick, vol. 3, 1945) notes: "The church probably occupies the site of the Saxon monastery already mentioned, and a priest at Stratford is mentioned in the Domesday Survey. [...] The parish church of the HOLY TRINITY has no definite evidence of the 12th century, unless the roundheaded windows in the tower be accepted as such, but the influence of the earliest structure may explain why the nave is deflected considerably to the north of the axial line of the other parts of the church. [...] The font is modern; its design is based on the much broken bowl of a 15th-century one now placed at the west end of the north aisle: this, which is octagonal with moulded upper and lower edges and on each side two quatrefoil panels with foliage centres, was recovered in 1860 after use as a garden vase." [NB: there is a pristine-looking font in the Perpendicular design inside the church now, perhaps after the original font; it appears modern; is it a complete restoration of the old one?]