Durham No. 4 / South Bailey

Fordyce (1857) notes: "The baptismal font is from the chisel of White, of London, and is one of the artits's finest specimens of Norman decoration" [i.e., neo-Norman]. The Victoria County History (Durham, vol. 3, 1928) notes: "The church is of 12th-century date, but was almost entirely rebuilt in 1846–7 in the 'Norman' style, very few of its ancient architectural features being preserved [...] The building had lost many of its original features some years prior to the rebuilding, Sir Stephen Glynne, who visited it in 1825, stating that it had been 'lately modernised and the windows altered from the original form.' [...] The font also is modern." Pevsner (1983) remarks that the font now in South Bailey St. Mary's is "Norman-style by White of London" and that "the old one moved to St. Mary, Shincliffe." [NB: the church known as St. Mary-the-Less, in the South Bailey district of Durham dates back to Norman times] [NB: Forcdyce (ibid.) informs that the church of Shincliffe was consecrated on 5 August 1851; previous to that there had been a small chapel made from a tithe barn and consecrated on 23 September 1826. "Previous to 1826, there was no place of public worship in this parish"]. [NB: the baptismal font moved to Shincliffe must have been the mid-19th century one; the old Norman font had alread disappeared by the time of Glynne's visit in 1825 -- we have no information on its whereabouts].