Inkberrow / Incebarrow / Inkbarewe / Inkebarrow / Inkebergh / Inkeberwe / Intanbeorgan / Inteberg / Inteberga / Inteberge

There are two entries for Inkberrow [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SP0157/inkberrow/] [accessed 25 September 2014], the second of which, in the lordship of the bishop of Hereford St. Mary in 1086, reports a church in it but mentions no church, though there probably was one there. Noake (1868) reports "a curious symbolical font, worth inspecting" in this church. Miller (1890) writes: "The font is of early date, 11th or 12th century, square and carved." The Victoria County History (Worcester, vol. 3, 1913) notes: "In 1086 there was a priest in the Bishop of Hereford's manor of Inkberrow. [...] Evidence of a 12th-century building upon the site is seen in the south wall of the nave, which has a plinth of the extraordinary projection of 18 in. [...] The font is apparently of early 13th-century date. It is square in plan, the bowl having vertical sides partly moulded, and hollowed on the lower edge. On each face are three circular carvings, all with varying flower patterns, except on the east side, where the second one bears the Agnus Dei. The hollow chamfer below is enriched with dog-tooth flowers. At the top of the font is the beginning of an inscription, + EST HIC FON. . . . The stem is square and plain and the base has a roll and splay on its upper edge." In Brooks & Pevsner (2007): "Large square bowl of c. 1200. Beneath it a kind of large elaborate dogtooth; on each side three medallions with rosettes or crosses, also the Agnus Dei and fleurs-de-lys. The top surface retains part of a Lombardic inscription, a rare survival." Noted in the Parish web site [www.cofe-inkberrow.org.uk/st_peter.htm] as a baptismal font of the Norman period, "from around 1200 A.D. [...] In 1839, it was cleaned and placed under the arch linking the chancel to the south transept, near the pulpit. It was moved to its current position opposite the south door of the nave in 1887." The font is indeed of the 'table-top type' found in Norman times in England and in the Continent, but if the basin is of that period, the ornamentation it bears is probably not: the sides are each decorated with three motifs inscribed in circles (crosses, fleurs-de-lis, etc.; below those are two parallel incised lines, all around; on the narrow chamfer of the underbowl, rows of rosettes, again, not Norman; the base has a pedestal stem and a square lower base, both plain; the whole rests on a modern plinth. The wooden font cover appears modern as well.