Leicester No. 4 / Ledecestre

There are ten entries for Leicester [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SK5804/leicester/] [accessed 28 August 2015], with a total of four churches mentioned in them. The Victoria County History (Leicester, vol. 4, 1958) notes: "St. Nicholas's Church is probably built on the site of the basilica of Roman Leicester, although it is very difficult to say what lies beneath the church, since only the ground under the narrow passage between the church and the Jewry Wall can be excavated. [...] Any explanation of the foundation and early history of the church must be largely conjectural. It seems very probable that the large early Saxon church which stood on this site was the minster or cathedral of the Saxon see of Leicester. The evidence of the fabric itself does not contradict the possibility that the building of the church coincides with the creation of the see. The first recorded bishop, Cuthwine, is known to have been in office from 679, although the see itself was not permanently established until 737. The church was probably not dedicated to St. Nicholas originally, that dedication only having been adopted about 1220. [...] it seems certain that the church of St. Nicholas, under its old dedication, was given to the college of St. Mary de Castro in 1107 and passed to Leicester Abbey on its foundation in 1143. [...] Whatever the truth of its very early history, it seems certain that the church of St. Nicholas, under its old dedication, was given to the college of St. Mary de Castro in 1107 and passed to Leicester Abbey on its foundation in 1143. [...] The pre-Conquest remains of the church are the north and west walls of the nave and the wall above the 19th-century arch of the south nave arcade. [...] The font stands at the west end of the south aisle, and dates from the last century [...] It is a square block of sandstone, with a scooped basin, supported on a single alabaster column." According to Pevsner (1984) and to the Open Churches Trust [www.openchurchestrust.org.uk] the present font, a 15th-century Perpendicular one, was brought from Stamford St Michael's [cf. Index entry for Stamford No. 1 (Lincs.)]