Over Stowey

No entry found for Over Stowey in the Domesday survey. Kelly's Directory of 1883 reports "an ancient stone font" in this church [for which it gives the dedication to St. Mary Magdalene]. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Perpendicular period. Not mentioned in Pevsner (1958). The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Somerset, vol. 6, 1992) notes: "There was a church at Over Stowey in the time of Ralph, whose grandson Hugh de Bonville between c. 1155 and 1189 endowed it, and before 1181 gave it to Stogursey priory [...] The church of ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL, so dedicated by 1532, [...] had been dedicated to St. Peter alone in the 12th century [...] The short, narrow nave may be of 12thcentury origin but its earliest feature is a 14th-century window in the south wall [...] In1840 the church was restored by Richard Carver"; there is no mention of a font in the VCH entry. The font consists of an octagonal basin with plain vertical sides, the underbowl chamfer decorated with large quatrefoils; moulding at the centre ring position, the octagonal stem sides decorated with trefoiled arches / windows; moulding at the lower base; raised on an octagonal plinth with kneeling extension. The upper rim of the basin shows stone-insert repairs. The wooden cover is an octagonal pyramid, the side panels decorated with scroll decoration; acorn and cross finial, perhaps modern, though the cover itself appears older. Neither font nor cover mentioned in Pevsner (1958).