Hornton

No entry found for Hornton in the Domesday survey. Kelly's Oxford Directory of 1911 reports: "the font is Transition[-]Norman and was also coloured" [NB: the 'also' refers to Kelly's (ibid.) coment that "almost every part of the church bears evidence of its having once been highly ornamented in colour and gilding"]. The Victoria County History, Oxford, vol. 9, 1969) notes: "The church of ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, Hornton [...] was originally built in the late 12th century, was enlarged in the 13th century, and again enlarged and considerably altered in the course of the next 2 centuries. Of the original church there remains the nave and the north aisle: the 3 arches of the nave arcade are in the transitional style between Romanesque and Early English and rest on cylindrical shafts which have capitals with square chamfered abaci. Another survival of the 12th-century church is the cylindrical font with an arcade of interesting arches and a base moulding of cables." Described in Sherwood & Pevsner (1974): "Font. Norman, circular, with a blind arcade of intersecting arches above a double band of cable moulding. Around the rim a border of stylized leaves." The old basin is now raised on a broad octagonal pedestal base; modern. The wooden cover is octagonal and flat, with metal decoration and cross finial; also modern.