Stinsford / Stincteford / Stitsford

There are two entries for Stinsford [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SY7191/stinsford/] [accessed 8 November 2017], neither of which mentions priest or church in it. Long (1923) notes this as one of the few fonts in Dorset that are made of marble [cf. infra]. In Mee (1939) as "a battered 13th century font with is arcading". [NB: Mee (ibid.) notes also "a white marble vase font of the 18th century" in this church]. In the inventory of the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset (1970). In Pevsner & Newman (1972): "Font. Square, of Purbeck marble, with six flat blank arches on each side." In Sackett & Sackett (2000). Described and illustrated in Gerald Duke, who reports the following extracted from the Parish notes on the history of this church: "The most interesting piece of church furniture is the Norman font. As early as October 1908 in a letter to the Rev. C.P. Wix, Vicar of Stinsford 1907, Thomas Hardy states that the diocesan architect [C.E. Ponting] when called in to report on the condition of the church, possibly did not see the remains of the old font" - it had been found in seven pieces under rubbish in the churchyard - "or he would have suggested its repair & re-erection (not necessarily for use)". Duke further informs that Hardy, in his 'Notes on Stinsford Church', suggested that the old font "now in fragments might be erected on a plain square base in the south west corner of the nave nearly opposite the present one as a relic, but not for use - the present marble font [in which Hardy was himself baptised] - date 1700-1750 having seen 150 to 200 years of christenings, and acquired a prescriptive right to remain". Duke also notes that after the Great War [1914-1918] Mrs. Cowley offered to pay for the restoration of the Norman fragments and, in a letter of August 1920 sent her by Hardy, offered a solution "for the setting up of the old font [...] I find it to be of almost exactly the same date as the one in Martinstown [aka Winterbornme St Martin], and have therefore adopted the design of that font in its lower part." Duke adds that a drawing of the design can be seen in The Architectural Notebook of Thomas Hardy (1966), and that Hardy's plan was carried out; an old stone basin dug up in the garden of Stinsford House -perhaps an old holy-water stoup from the church- has been fitted inside the bowl of the Norman font and now holds the water for baptims. Noted in Leach (1975) as a font made of Purbeck marble: "bowl with six panels on each face; the base is missing and there may have been detached subsidiary shafts" [source given: Dr. G. Dru Drury].