Stanford le Hope / Stanford-le-Hope

Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a noteworthy baptismal font of the Early English period. Described in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as an old baptismal font that "has an octagonal bowl with very strongly curved sides", and gives the font at Pembridge (Hereford) as "a near parallel". Bettley & Pevsner (2007) add: "Moved to N[orth] side of the chancel arch as part of reordering from 1994." Noted in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (Essex, 1916-1923): "Font: bowl, octofiled on plan, capitals on under-side with defaced foliage, round stem with eight small shafts and moulded base, Purbeck marble, early 13th-century, top part of bowl restored. Font cover: of octagonal ogee form with crocketed ribs, 17th or 18th-century, modern finial." In Pevsner (1976): "Font. Octofoil plan, C13, on nine supports." The RCHM (ibid.) inventories also a 15th-century holy-water stoup in the south aisle, east of the south doorway [no separate entry in this Index]. Noted in the Thurrock Early History Society web site [http://www.thurrock-community.org.uk/historysoc/stmargaret.htm] [accessed 20 September 2010]: "The font of Purbeck marble dates from c.1210, with later restoration, and a Stuart cover."