Hanbury nr. Burton-upon-Trent

This is probably the font referred to as Norman in Lewis' Dictionary of 1848 [although Lewis gives St. James as the advocation of this church, instead of St. Werburga]. Described in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Norman period, "enclosed, with deplorably [sic] bad taste, in an alabaster casing". The Minstead Parish Council web site [www.nfdc.gov.uk/index.cfm?Articleid=2364] informs that "in 1893 Henry James Abbott, who was doing some gardening, dug it up in the old Rectory garden. He wheeled it up to the Church in his wheelbarrow and it was placed where it belonged." The re-built font is square, mounted on a central shaft and four corner colonnettes, and looks very much the Victorian piece it is, regardless of the Saxon or Norman core. Fortunately a record of the old bowl remains. An entry in the index of the William Salt Library, Stafford [www.staffordshire.gov.uk/live/pdf/archives/fis-lei.pdf] lists under reference SV IV.249 "Hanbury Church -- Ancient Font Bowl: tracing -- n[o] d[ate] [1933]." describes the tracing and its contents which give measurements of the original basin and identifies the material, hard sandstone. This same source informs that it was "Presented by Mr. L.J. Hughes, 1933."