Bampton No. 1 / Bentone

There are four entries for this Bampton [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SP3103/bampton/] [accessed 29 July 2014], but neither of then report priest or church in it. The Ecclesiastical and Architectural Topography of England: Oxfordshire (1850) notes: "The font is square E[arly] E[nglish]". Noted in the Victoria County History (Oxfordshire, 1996) as "a square, 12th-century bowl with round-headed blind arcading" that was replaced by a 19th-century one in 1847. The old basin must have been the original from the 12th-century Norman church. [cf. Index entry for Bampton No. 2 for the composite font now in service in this church]. Carol Harmond informs BSI [e-mail of 14 Sept. 2006] that there is a 1821 drawing of the 13th-century font by J.C. Buckler [Bodleian Library, MS Top. Oxon.a 65, No. 56]; the drawing shows the present base in an inverted position]. [We are grateful to Carol Harmond (nee Baston), of www.bastonfamily.co.uk, for the information on this font]. The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland [www.crsbi.ac.uk/ed/ox/bampt/index.htm] [accessed 18 June 2007] notes: "Now lost, but known from a drawing by J. C.Buckler in 1821 (Bodleian Library, MS Top. Oxon.a 65, No.56). It stood on an early 14thc. base, shown inverted in the drawing, which survives supporting the present Victorian font. Square, but with the interior of the bowl round. On each face, plain round-headed blind arcading in five bays. Although there is no evidence for the material, this looks like one of the earlier types of standard Purbeck marble font. Dimensions (These dimensions are calculated from the Buckler drawing in conjunction with the surviving late medieval plinth, and are very approximate.) h. of bowl approx 0.30 m / w. of bowl approx. 0.80 m".