Amesbury No. 1 / Amblesberie / Ambresberie / Ambresbury

There are three entries for this Amesbury [variant spellings] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SU1541/amesbury/] [accessed 10 February 2023]; none of them mention cleric or church in it. Described in Gough (1792): "The font at Ambresbury [i.e., Amesbury] is a large vessel with a lip panelled, and set on a shaft with niches". Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a noteworthy baptismal font of the Norman period. Ditto Betjeman (1958). Noted in Buck (1951) as one in a group of Norman square fonts dating between 1130 and 1200, including those at North Tidworth, Codford St. Peter, Ebbesbourne Wake, Steeple Langford, Amesbury, Maiden Bradley, Downton and Dinton. On the font at Amesbury, Buck (ibid.) writes: "This bowl was probably mounted originally as a 'tabular' font similarly to that at Steeple Langford, but in the fifteenth century it was placed on a solid rectangular pedestal, as now seen [... ] During the 1852-3 restoration the font was broken up into fifty or sixty pieces and buried under the chancel floor; in 1907 it was dug up and restored to use." [NB: cf. Index entry for Amesbury No. 2 for the likely base of the object used as base under the Norman basin]. Noted in Pevsner & Cherry (1975): "Font. Square, Norman of Purbeck marble, with the familiar very shallow blank arches." The Victoria County History (Wiltshire, vol. 15, 1995) notes: "There was a church at Amesbury from when the abbey was founded c. 979, [...] and perhaps from before then [...] When the abbey was dissolved in 1177 the church of St. Mary and St. Melor, evidently the abbey church, was granted to Amesbury priory. [...] The nave is of the earlier 12th century [...] Nearly all the furnishings, including a west gallery, a 15th-century rood screen, and an early 13thcentury font, were removed from the church. [...] in 1907 some of the furnishings removed in 1852–3, including the screen and the font, were replaced." The font is square, all of one width, but with the underbowl slightly indented; the sides of the basin are very eroded; those of the base are decorated with deeply carved arcades of blind arches; the spandrels of the upper surface of the font are decorated with foliage motif; the well of the basin is round and lead-lined. The Wiltshire Community History web page [www.wiltshire.gov.uk/gallery/church/amesbury_picP00620.jpg] [accessed 23 December 2004] informs that a 13th-century font was removed in 1852-1853, restored and replaced by a Victorian font, and a photograph of the church interior dated 1905 shows the new [i.e., Victorian] font installed in the nave. Noted in Leach (1975) as a font made of Purbeck marble "broken up and buried in 1853 and restored in 1907 [...] the supports are modern" [source given: Professor E.M. Jope]