North Shoebury / Essoberia / Little Shoebury / Shoebury Parva

There are three entries for [North and South] Shebury [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/XX0000/north-and-south-shoebury/] [accessed 19 February 2023], none of which reports cleric or church in it. The Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (Essex, 1916-1923) entry notes: "Font: Square Purbeck marble bowl with fleurs-de-lis in relief in the spandrels of the top surface, moulded underside and base for one central and four side-shafts, late 12th-century; square stem with four attached shafts, later." Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Early English period. Noted in Pevsner (1976): "Font. Square bowl on five supports. The sides undecorated, but on the top in the four corners fleurs-de-lis." The Bettley & Pevsner edition (2007) adds the date (C12) and the kind of stone (Purbeck marble). A photograph of this font by C.W. Forbes is listed in the 'Churches Collection' of the Essex Record Office [SEAX ref. no.: I/Cc/87/2]. The entry for this church in Historic England [List Entry Number: 1112716] notes: "The earliest visible fabric is C13. The chancel is c.1230. The S aisle was added to the nave c.1250, and the lower part of the tower was built in the late C13 [...] C12 Purbeck marble font, with a square bowl on a shafted stem." Noted in Leach (1975) as a font made of Purbeck marble: "bowl with fleur-de-lys in the spandrels of of the top; supports are later" [source given: RCHM, (SE), 1923].