Dewsbury / Deusberia

There is an entry for Dewsbury [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SE2421/dewsbury/] [accessed 17 October 2018]; it reports a priest and a church in it. Glynne's 2 December 1858 visit too this church reports: "The font is Norman, the bowl circular, with a sort of scroll on it." The description in the Historic Churches Preservation Trust, Recent Grants [...] 16 March 2006 [www.historicchurches.org.uk]: "17thC font" appears to refer to a different font. A font consisting of a round basin with an octagonal decorated chamfer on the underbowl and mounted on an octagonal pedestal base and polygonal church is now in use in the nave of this church; it is a modern font, according to one source [www.interfaithkirklees.org.uk/thecentres/takelookdetail.asp?fcid=8&fcpicid=16] [accessed 30 October 2008]. The Dewsbury Minster web site (Church of England, Wakefield Diocese) [http://www.dewsburyminster.org.uk/building.php] [accessed 30 October 2008] reports information from Richard A. Middleton's 'The Church of Dewsbury' (2006) on the original Anglo-Saxon church of ca. 980 AD. According to Middleton there was a baptismal font at the western end of the small church. It also reports that "In 1884 […] during the rebuilding of the walls in the south aisle, the “lost font” was discovered and reassembled. It is a rare example of a thirteenth century font". There is no mention of the whereabouts of the original Anglo-Saxon font, or the Norman font. [NB: the following text is an excerpt from an e-mail from Peter Newsome related to genealogical issues and obviously referring to yet one other font, in this case a modern one: "During a recent visit to Dewsbury in search of my Newsome ancestors I noticed the following inscription (which I may have slightly abbreviated) on the wooden cover of the stone font in the Parish Church/Minster. "To the glory of God / in loving memory of / FRANK NEWSOME / 1856-1910" for 40 years a faithful member of the choir… The font was given by his widow 1921. A Church Warden informed me that the font was transferred from another Dewsbury church when it was closed in recent years but I do not know which one."] The entry for this church in Historic England [Listing NGR: SE2459021524] notes: "Parish church. North arcade c.1220. South arcade later C13, rebuilt 1895 [...] Font probably C17, a 'tulip' bowl divided into 8 panels with decorative cornice and chamfered underside with patterns. Octagonal pedestal." There is no font mentioned in Pevsner & Radcliffe (1967). Ryder (1993) reports "a seventeenth-century font" in it. Harman & Pevsner (2017) not impressed byt it: "Stone, octagonal, with crude carved ornament". The battered basin shows reconstruction through-cracks and damaged sides; whether in its original shape or re-cut, it is roughly octafoil on the outside, with piping at the spandrels, but round on the inside; the 'foils' on the outside end in trumpet-scallop like panels that have scroll tracery patterns on them; the large polygonal [octagonal?] may have been part of the basin block or a totally unrelated stone; some of its sides are damaged while others have retained an almost geometrical vine pattern on them; the stem is octagonal and totally plain; the lower base is octagonal and chamferred, also plain; the stem and the lower base may be unrelated to the top, but they are old; ca. 2008 it was mounted on a large polygonal plinth with keeling stone extension, but that appears to have been disposed off and the font is now [October 2017] on a little octagonal platform of wood filled with pebbles. A flat wooden cover of modern appearance is on the font.