Standlake

No entry for Standlake found in the Domesday survey. Sherwood and Pevsner (1974) confirm the origin of the new font and cover to the 1880-1891 restoration; the cover, and much of the 19th-century woodwork in this church, designed by Clapton C. Rolfe, and "carved by Harry Hems of Exeter". The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Oxon., vol. 13, 1996) notes: "In the late Anglo-Saxon period Standlake and Brighthampton formed part of an extensive parochia centred on Bampton minster [...] A church or chapel was established presumably by the lords of Standlake before the late 12th century, the date of the earliest surviving fabric; [...] a priest and clerk of Standlake who witnessed a grant by the lord before 1192, and a chaplain who witnessed another before 1196, may have served it [...] The church had baptismal rights probably from the 12th century, the date of the former font [...] New furnishings introduced between 1880 and 1891 [...] The Norman font, then in the north aisle but behind the communion rail in the earlier 19th century, [...] was replaced in 1883 by a new one in the south transept, with an elaborately carved cover by Hems. The entry for this church in the CRSBI (2017) notes: "Plain, tup-shaped. Now lost; watercolour of 1821 by J. C. Buckler in Bodleian MS Top. Oxon.a 68 No.495." The font now at Standlake St. Giles' appears to be a Victorian replacement, a hemispherical basin with a band of decoration around the upper basin side, raised on a base of clustered columns, all apparently a single block of stone with the plinth. Tall pyramidal cover probably of the same period decorated with tracery and some open-work as well as with a cluster of four (?) angels about 2/3 up towards the finial; suspended on a counterweight system.