Donhead St. Mary

The Gentleman's Magazine (issue of Oct. 1861, p. 416) reports the visit on 22 August of the same year by the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society to both Donheads, St. Mary and St. Andrew, but it mentions only "the Anglo-Norman font" in St. Andrew's church. The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine (vol. VII, 1862) publishes the report of the 8th General Meeting of this Society, held at Shaftesbury between the 21st and 23rd of August 1861, in which it is recorded that same visit, but this report remarks on "the ancient font and the capitals and pillars" found in their inspection of t"the Church of Donhead St. Mary's". Described in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a "a cylindrical Norman example boldly arcaded", and that "it is figured in Hoare's Wilts." Holmes (1922) writes that this "church […] is […] mainly Norman and Early English with some sixteenth-century additions. The round font belongs to the older style. Buck (1950) classes this font in a Wiltshire group [Ditteridge, Biddestone, Tytherton Lucas, Staton St. Quintin, Winterbourne Monkton and Donhead St. Mary] defined as 'unmounted circular tub fonts' from the 'Middle Norman' period of ca. 1100-1150. Noted in Pevsner & Cherry (1975): "Font. Norman, circular, with arcading and a top band of interlace." The Victoria County History (Wiltshire, vol. 13, 1987) notes: "Donhead St. Mary church was standing in the 12th century. [...] church of St. Mary, so called in 1291 [...] A circular font with arcades survives from the 12th-century church."