Cambridge No. 9 / 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 Gentleman's Magazine (issue for September 1842, p. 246) reports that the Cambridge Camden Society was at the time contemplating "(if funds can be procured) to have a new Font, with a magnificent cover 14 or 15 feet high, placed in the centre of the circular portion of the church, which will be entirely paved with encaustic tiles." The Victoria County History (Cambridge..., vol. 3, 1959) notes: "At some date between 1114 and 1130 Reinald, Abbot of Ramsey, granted to the members of the fraternity of the Holy Sepulchre the graveyard of St. George's church and land adjoining to build thereon a 'monasterium' in honour of God and the Holy Sepulchre, always provided that the church of Ramsey retained its rights there. [...] It seems that Ramsey had been the patron of an earlier church of St. George, but no other mention of it is known. The architecture of the oldest part of St. Sepulchre is consistent with the date 1120–40. [...] It is one of the four or five round churches in England, and probably consisted originally of a round nave with an ambulatory and a semicircular apse. A chancel and north and south aisle to the east of the round were added, probably in the 15th century, when a polygonal belfry was built over it"; no font mentioned in the VCH entry. Pevsner (1970) makes no mention of a baptismal font in the Holy Sepulchre, Cambridge, but his illustration of the church interior shows a font in the style of the Perpendicular period, an octagonal basin decorated with deeply-carved quatrefoil windows on the outer panels; octagonal shaft and octagonal moulded lower base. The wooden font cover is a tall Ogee structure with Gothic arches and cocketed spires. Obviously the Cambridge Camden Society came up with the required funds to implement their 'contemplation of 1842 [cf. supra]. [NB: the RCHM (Cambridge, 1959) notes the original church here may have been late-12th century, with major 15th-century work, etc., but the font dates from 1843]