Cambridge No. 6 / Grentebrige

There are five entries for Cambridge [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL4458/cambridge/] [accessed 29 March 2016], none of which mentions cleric or church in it. The RCHM (Cambridge, 1959) reports and illustrates a plain octagonal stone basin "encased in a remarkable painted timber structure of 1637 with columns supporting an elaborate canopy"; the RCHM (ibid.) reports the date of the purchase of the wood for the casing-canopy is recorded as 1637 in the churchwardens account books, the painting and gilding added the following year; it also reports a restoration of the structure in the 19th century at which time the painted inscriptions were added. The Victoria County History (Cambridge..., vol. 3, 1959) notes: "The foundation of St. Botolph has been conjecturally assigned to the late 10th or early 11th century, when the cult of the saint was being promoted at Ely, Thorney, and Bury by Aethelwold of Winchester. [...] St. Botolph's, alone of all the medieval churches of Cambridge, is a rectory, but, its rector being usually a fellow of Queens' and residing in college, no permanent rectory house has ever been built for the parish"; no font mentioned in the VCH entry. Pevsner (1970) writes: "Font. Surrounded in 1637 by an octagonal casing. The cover is quite spectacular, square and open with very slim angle columns." [NB: the font itself dates probably from the 15th century. Described and illustrated in the Cambridgeshire Churches web site [www.druidic.org/camchurch] [accessed 6 September 2004]: "[...] to the west sits the font. It has a splendid Laudian octagonal cover from 1637, a confection of obelisks, pyramids and columns: the sort of thing that I always wish I could make using building blocks when I was little". The font itself -or the outer casing of it- appears octagonal and painted blue-grey, gold and black; over the font stands a tall canopy supported on four slender (marble?) colonnettes; the top is square with shield/emblems at the four sides on ornate frames, while the inner part appears to be the ribs-around-a-central-pivot typical of the Jacobean covers; knob finial. The cover proper is wooden, a reduction of the same Jacobean-type construction, the ribs tiny around the pivot; it is painted gold, blue-grey and black to match the font.