Littlemore

No entry found for Littlemore in the Domesday survey. Gardner's Gazetteer (1852) noted in its entry for Oxford St. Mary's that its "ancient stone font and pulpit, which were defaced by the soldiers of the Commonwealth in 1643, are near the entrance door on the north side" at the time [i.e., ca. 1852]. Noted in Lambert (1945) as originally from Oxford: "Newman obtained for his new church at Littlemore the thirteenth century font of St. Mary's which had been superseded by the existing one supplied by Plowman in 1828." The Victoria County History (Oxford, vol. 4, 1979) reports the old font from St. Mary's moved to Littlemore. The VCH (Oxford, vol. 5, 1957) notes: "While the Littlemore tenants of Iffley manor were parishioners of Iffley, Littlemore manor was attached to the parish of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford. [...] The foundation stone of the Church of St. Mary and St. Nicholas was laid by Newman's mother on 21 July 1835; [...] 210) the chapel was consecrated on 22 September 1836. [...] Newman secured the bowl of an old stone font from St. Mary's, believing that generations of Littlemore children had been baptized in it." [NB: John Henry Newman (1801-1890) [www.newadvent.org/cathen/10794a.htm] [accessed 13 June 2012]]. Noted in Sherwood & Pevsner (1974): "C13 bowl from St Mary's Oxford. Blind arcade of trefoiled arches with roll-mouldings, separated by fleur de lys. The cover, in East Anglian style with tiers of crocketed pinnacles, is of 1924." Howell (1983) notes: "the font on the right of the entrance, came from St Mary's, Oxford, where a new font by Plowmanhad been installed in 1828. It is thirteenth-century 'once very beautiful with sculpture', wrote Newman, 'which has been all hacked off by the Reformation or Rebellion mobs'" [NB: Howell refers to John Henry Newman's diaries edited by T. Cornall and published in 1981]. The Parish web site illustrates the font and informs: "The font [...] is believed to date from the 13th or 14th century. It was dug up at St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, and acquired by Newman in the belief that many Littlemore children had been baptised in it." The font consists of a round, not quite hemispherical basin, decorated with trefoil arches and floral motifs in the spandrels, raised on a clustered column stem, the bases moulded, and a round plinth. This font is quite similar to that at Leiston, in Suffolk [cf. Index entry], but the latter has wider arches that rest on the ouiter colonnettes of the base, whereas the arches on the Littlemore font do not have column supports of any kind. Noted in The Victoria County History (Oxford, 1979) [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=22821] [accessed 26 June 2007]: "The medieval font, apparently removed during the Civil War, may be the 13th-century one in the 19th-century church at Littlemore. It was replaced at St. Mary's by an oak font, itself replaced in 1828 by a stone one designed by Thomas Plowman." On-site notes: the font is a very good state of preservation; the inner well of the basin is lead-lined and has a central drain; the tall wooden cover is fitted with a counterweight system. [NB: the VCH reports a modern copy of the font from Littlemore at St. Andrew's, in Hamble-le-Rice, Hants]