Shawbury / Sawesberie

There is an entry for Shawbury in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SJ5521/shawbury/] [accessed 12 November 2022]; it reports a church and a priest in it. Illustrated in Eyton (1859) [Eyton dates the early church to the Saxon period but does not refer specifically to the font as Saxon]. The Antiquary (issue No. 33, vol. 6, September 1882: 120) informs of the annual excursion of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society undertaken on 27 June 1882, with a visit to Shawbury St. Mary's, and the font thereof is described as ''unmistakably Saxon''. Noted in Newman & Pevsner (2006) as Norman. The entry for this church in Historic England [Listing NGR: SJ5591721178] notes: "Parish church. Late C12 nave and south aisle, C13 chancel, north aisle rebuilt in late C15, north chapel and tower, and late C17 porch. Alterations and restoration dated 1603 and 1875 [...] C12 stone tub font with bands of geometrical ornament, moulded base and lead lining." Listed and illustrated in the CRSBI [https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=13227] [accessed 12 November 2022]: "The font is centrally placed at the W end of the nave, under the tower arch, and is of a reddish sandstone. A deeply carved 12thc cylindrical bowl is set on a later medieval cylindrical stem and an attic base, and this on a square plinth. The bowl is decorated in 6 registers, numbered from the top [...] The striking feature of the carved bands (2 to 5) is that they are not parallel to the rim of the bowl but undulate around it in an irregular manner.while remaining more or less parallel to each other, thus the decorated bands are highest at the NE and lowest at the S of the bowl. The bowl is lead-lined to half of its height, and there are remains of staples on the rim at E and W [...] The font belongs to the same group as Edgmond and Lilleshall within the county and Church Eaton and Bradley in Staffordshire." The font is tub-shaped with a number of bands of varied motifs (beads, rope, intersecting arches, etc., all around; stands on a quadranqular lower base or plinth that is decorated with foliage on its upper corners [it is possible that this base be of a later date]