Ilkley No. 1 / Ilecliue / Illicleia

There are two entries for Ilkley [variant spellings] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SE1147/ilkley/] [accesed 30 October 2018], each of which reports a priest and a church in it. Glynne's 9 May 1862 visit to this church (in Butler, 2007) reports: "The font is a new one, octagonal and plain." Morris (1932) notes a Jacobean font cover in this church. The entry for this church in Historic England [Listing 101133506] notes: "Parish church in mainly Tudor-Gothic style, with little distinction between late-medieval and C19 work. [...] The massive undecorated medieval tub font has chamfered corners and stands on a C19 pedestal." The Wharfedale's Community on the Web site has an article on Ilkley by Fraser Irwin, which reads: "While the font cover is original, the font is not. When the church was undergoing refurbishment during the Victorian era, the original font was taken to the Vicarage on Wells Road. Where it became forgotten. A new font, the present one, was carved as a replacement" [source: www.ilkley.org/iguide/ramblerumble.htm]. Up-to-date information is provided in the Parish web site and in the photograph taken in June 2009 by Colin Smith for BSI: the old font has been re-instated and is in use again. The Parish site gives the date of the cover as 1633 and notes "the weighted pulley which enables the cover -which also acts as a soundboard- to be lifted easily to reveal the lead-lined bowl into which the water is poured". The font itself consists of an [now?] irregular polygonal basin made of local stone that has probably lost part of the carving on the sides; at least one of the sides retains what appears to be the trace of a round arch; it is raised on a similarly-shaped base, probably modern.