Attleborough

We found no entry for this Attleborough in the Domesday survey. There is entry for Baddesley [Ensor] [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SP2798/baddesley-ensor/] [accessed 2 March 2015], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. There was an early triangular-shaped baptismal font made of sandstone in the original church at Baddesley. One source (J. Hurst's web site) describes the old church thus: "a two-cell building in the Norman style with a red-sandstone chevron molded Norman doorway". A new church, dedicated to St. Nicholas, was built in a more convenient location in the 19th century, and the old font was moved there. The Norman arch ended up (ibid.) in St. Mary's church, Atherstone. Later in the 19th century this second church fell into disuse and the old "triangular font was purchased by Attleborough for their new church but later discarded and can still be seen in the churchyard there" (ibid.). [NB: This story is corroborated in The Gentleman's Magazine (issue for October 1842, p. 412), in its report of the consecration of "The new church at Attleborough, in the Parish of Nuneaton, Warwickshire, dedicated to The Holy Trinity", where, "at the west end of the nave is placed a triangular font, on the sides of which are engraved the following words in old English characters, with initial letters of great beauty -- "In nomine Patris et Filii at Spiritus Sancti". More recently it is confirmed in Celia Parton's article "St Nicholas Church, Baddesley Ensor" published in the web page of the Nuneaton & North Warwickshire Family History Society]. A communication from Nancy Bradley [e-mail of Dec. 3, 2002], a member of the Holy Trinity Church Attleborough Nuneaton, informs that although she and other older members remember the font being in the churchyard many years ago, "no-one seems to know what happened to it, unfortunately". The present font is from 1901.