Bluntisham / Blondesham / Blunsham / Bluntersham / Bluntesham / Bluntisham cum Earith / Bluntsome / Bluntysham

Described in Cooke (1802): "The font, which is octagonal, is ornamented with sculptures of roses, masks, &c." The National Gazetteer of 1868 reports "an octagonal font" in this church. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Perpendicular period. The Victoria County History (Huntingdon, vol. 2, 1932) notes: "The two townships of Bluntisham and Earith, which are a mile apart, have probably always formed one ecclesiastical parish. [...] A church and a priest are returned under Bluntisham on the land of the Abbey of Ely in the Domesday Survey (1086). [...] Of the church mentioned in the Inquisitio Eliensis and in the Domesday Survey (1086) nothing now remains, the earliest parts of the existing building being the chancel with its north vestry or chapel built about 1330, and the west tower built about 1370–1380. [...] The font is octagonal, the bowl of stone, of about 1500, with quatrefoil panels, grotesque faces, leaves and flowers; the stem of clunch with panelled sides and moulded base, somewhat earlier." Pevsner (1968) writes: "Font. Perp, octagonal. Panelled stem, quatrefoiled bowl, big flowers and also a Green Man on the underside." The British Listed Buildings database entry for this church [ww.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-53767-parish-church-of-st-mary-bluntisham] [accessed 20 April 2012] notes: "Barnack stone font with quatre foil panels and underside panelled and carved with 'green men'" but does not mention a stoup here. [NB: a holy-water stoup of pre-Reformation date is said to exist in this church but we have no description of it -- we have no information on the font of the 11th-century church here].