Bainton No. 1

Described in Paley (1844) as a "beautiful though simple font [...] of Early English date", the base of which is "furnished with bold capitals and bases", and cites the font at Stanground, near Peterborough as cognate. Baptismal font probably of the 12th or 13th century consisting of an octagonal basin with plain vertical sides and chamfered underbowl, and a five-support base made up of a broad central shaft and four corner colonnettes at 90-degree angles, all with moulded capitals and bases; the whole stands on a two step plinth, the upper round, the lower octagonal, both with 'priest's stone' extensions. Pyramidal wooden cover, octagonal, mostly plain but for a low crown-like decoration at the base and a ball finial; appears modern. The basin may be a replacement or the original one drastically altered. Noted in Mee (1945): "The font has clustered columns and is 700 years old." Listed and illustrated in The Digital Atlas of England web site [www.viewbuildings.com]. [NB: no mention of it in Pevsner (1970)]