Downholme / Donum / Dounholme / Dounum / Dowenome / Dune / Dunhum / Dunnom / Dunum

There is an entry for Downholme [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SE1197/downholme/] [accessed 20 November 2019] but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. The baptismal font at Downholme is illustrated in Whitaker (1823), where it shows as a cylindrical monolith with a single rope or braid moulding all around just below the upper rim; the author dates the church as "perhaps rather late Norman". The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (York North Riding, vol. 1, 1914) notes: "The church dates from about 1180 [...] the north aisle was added soon afterwards, about 1200, while the chancel appears to have been rebuilt about 1330 and the aisle continued into the chapel about a hundred years later. The church has undergone restoration in 1811, 1886 and 1894. [...] The font [...] is octagonal and has a cable mould round the top of the bowl, below which are shields; the stem is panelled." A footnote in the VCH entry (ibid.) reads: "A cut in Whitaker's Richmondshire shows the font to be of a plain cylindrical form with the twisted ornament only; from this it would appear that the font has been recut." Betjeman (1958) mentions a font "of interest" here. Pevsner (1985) notes: "Font. Seems Perp[endicular], with shields, but in fact a circular Norman piece, as the rope mopulding shows. The conversion to Perp[endicular] is C19." The entry for this church in Historic England [Listing NGR: SE1106898334] notes: "Church. C12, C13, C14, C15 with C19 restorations. [...] C12 octagonal font with cable moulding around rim and with C19 Perpendicular-style armorial shields around bowl, on C19 stem." The font consists of an octagonal basin of vertical sides, each decorated with a charged shield [no identification available for the coats of arms], the upper rim, however, round and decorated with a rope pattern; this rim is damaged in several areas and a major repair has been done to one of the sides; the panels of the chamfered underbowl are also decorated, one of them apparently bearing the date 1841 (?); the inner well of the basin is round and unlined, with a central drain hole; the stem of the base is also octagonal, as is the splaying lower base, the stem decorated with a trefoil arcade, the lower base with a pointed quatrefoil motif on each panel; the wooden cover, flat and plain with a knob handle/finial appears modern. The whole is raised on an octagonal plinth.