Kiddington / Cuddington

Gough (1792) writes: "The font at Kiddington, removed from the chapel at Islip where Edward the Confessor was baptised is justly doubted by Mr. Warton [...] as to its being of that antiquity" [NB: St. Edward the Confessor, aka Eadweard III, Anglo-Saxon king of England, is believed to have been born in 1004 or 1005 and was certainly not baptised in this font]. Described, with a drawing by P.H. Delamotte, in the Guide to the Architectural Antiquities of the Neighbourhood of Oxford (1846) as a hexagonal baptismal font ornamented with a blind arcade of double Ogee arches all around the sides of its basin; like the ones in the font at nearby Woodstock, the upper area of the arches has tracery ornamentation; also like Woodstock's font, the upper basin side, just under the rim, is decorated with a row of small bell-like motifs; another row of identical motif adorns the narrow chamfer of the bottom of the basin; the inner well of the font is round; the font has no base proper but it is raised on a three-step octagonal plinth. The Ecclesiastical and Architectural Topography of England: Oxfordshire (1850) notes: "The font is good D[ecorated], hexagonal with panelled tracery on each face", and makes reference to the illustration in the 1846 Guide [cf. supra]. Murray (1882) notes a Decorated font "of good character". Noted in Kelly's Oxford Directory of 1911 [http://www.historicaldirectories.org/hd/d.asp] [accessed 2 July 2007]: "the font is a hexagon of good Dec[o]rated work". Noted in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as one of group of 14th-century fonts in the Decorated style ornamented with varied patterns of blind tracery (in this group are: Offley in Herts.; Weobley in Hereford; Goadby Marwood and Noseley in Leics.; Barrowby, Carlton Scroope and Haydor in Lincs.; Northampton St. Peter's; Kiddington, Bloxham and Woodstock in Oxon.;Brailes in Warwick, and Patrington in Yorkshire). Noted in Sherwood and Pevsner (1974): "Font. Dec[orated]. Hexagonal, with a band of ballflower round the rim and a blind arch with flowing tracery on each face."