Dunstable / Dunstaple / Durocobrivae

No entry for Dunstable found in the Domesday survey. The Victoria County History (Bedford, vol. 3, 1912) notes: "The priory church of Dunstable served also as the parish church [...] The church, begun about 1130, was long in building, and it is probable that a start was not made on the nave till 1150. It was finished, probably, some years before the formal consecration of the whole church by Bishop Hugh de Wells of Lincoln in 1213 [...] The fittings of the church are for the most part modern, a small piece of late 12th-century carving being worked into the font." Noted in Pevsner (1968): "Font. Large, circular, Norman. The decoration is partly original and partly re-cut, or entirely C19." [NB: the motifs and patterns follow in a tradition of excellent Norman workmanship, but they are probably all modern despite the above claims; the present font looks very much like a copy of the one at Houghton Regis].