Colchester No. 1 / Colecastro / Colecestra

There are seventeen entries for Colchester [variant spellings] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL9925/colchester/] [accessed 8 June 2018]; a priest is mentioned as lord three times (two in 1066, one in 1086) and "0.5 church lands" is noted in one of the entries, but none of them mentions a church, though there must have some there at the time. Cox & Harvey (1907): "The finest and most elaborate font of that period [the Perpendicular] in the county [Essex] is the one of St. Martin, Colchester". Noted with an illustration in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (Essex, 1916-1923): "octagonal bowl with traceried panels and crocketed ogee heads, pinnacles at angles, stem with attached shafts having moulded capitals and bases, 15th-century." In Pevsner (1976): "Font. Octagonal, C14, with recesses in the stone crowned by three-dimensional ogee arches bending forward on the bowl." The entry for this borough in the Victoria County History (Essex, vol. 9, 1994) notes: "Topographical and archaeological evidence suggests that the church was founded in or before the late Anglo-Saxon period. [...] It was recorded in 1254 when the advowson of the rectory was held by St. Botolph's priory. [...] By the 11th century the church was probably a cruciform building with chancel, nave with north aisle, and transepts. The surviving west tower, which includes much Roman brick and may have replaced a central tower, was added in the 12th century. [...] St. Martin's church was made redundant at the 1953 reorganisation"; no font is mentioned in the VCH entry for this church]. Bettley & Pevsner (2007) report that the font "from St. Martin, Colchester" was moved to East Donyland. The font is now [2008] very weathered, some of the motifs quite worn.