Chalgrove / Celgrave / Chalgrave [orig. from Wallingford Castle?]
![Main image for Chalgrove / Celgrave / Chalgrave [orig. from Wallingford Castle?]](/static-50478a99ec6f36a15d6234548c59f63da52304e5/compressed/1090913021_compressed.png)
Image copyright © John Ward, 2008
Standing permission
Results: 9 records
B01: design element - motifs - floral or foliage - varied
BBU01: design element - motifs - zigzag
CR01: design element - motifs - rope moulding
R01: design element - motifs - moulding - flat moulding
UB01: design element - patterns - torsade
view of font
view of font
view of font and cover
view of font and cover in context
Scene Description: Church interior looking east; the font on the right is originally from Wallingford Castle
Copyright Statement: Image copyright © English Heritage, [2006?]
Image Source: digital reproduction of a photograph by Henry Taunt, taken between 1860 and 1922 [ref. no.: CC72/00394], from the 'Henry W. Taunt' collection, English Heritage NMR [www.viewfinder.english-heritage.org.uk] [accessed 24 January 2007]
Copyright Instructions: PERMISSION NOT AVAILABLE -- IMAGE NOT FOR PUBLIC USE
INFORMATION
FontID: 12571CHA
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Church/Chapel: Parish Church of St. Mary
Church Patron Saints: St. Mary the Virgin
Church Location: Chalgrove, Oxford OX44 7SD, UK
Country Name: England
Location: Oxfordshire, South East
Directions to Site: Located off (S) the B480, 6 km NNE of Bensington, 8 km NW of Watlington, 11 km NE of Wallingford, 20-24 km SE of Oxford
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Oxford
Historical Region: Hundred of Ewelme -- Hundred of Benson [in Domesday]
Font Location in Church: Inside the church
Century and Period: 16th century[re-cut?], Late Medieval [altered?]
Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to John Ward, of Oxfordshire Churches [http://homepage.mac.com/john.ward/oxfordshirechurches], for his photograph of this font
Font Notes:
Click to view
There is an entry for Chalgrove [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SU6396/chalgrove/] [accessed 27 June 2019] but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. A font here is illustrated in Skelton (1823). Described in Tymms (1834): "octagonal bason on a twisted shaft". The Ecclesiastical and Architectural Topography of England: Oxfordshire (1850) notes: "The font is a good specimen of Jacobean imitation of N[orman]". Ditto in Murray (1882). Kelly's Oxford Directory of 1911 notes that "the font and pulpit are Jacobean". Described in Sherwood & Pevsner (1974): "Font. Cup-shaped, octagonal, carved with the rose, thistle, and fleur de lys. Probably c. 1660." [NB: a late-date font originally from Wallingford Castle is kept in this church [source: Nash Ford Publishing, 2005 [www.nashfordpublishing.co.uk]] -- the Viewfinder web site of English Heritage, National Monuments Record [www.viewfinder.english-heritage.org.uk] has a photograph of the church interior showing the Wallingford Castle font in the west end of the nave, just south of the centre aisle]. [NB: a copper engraving by Frederick Mackenzie, "Font in Chalgrove Church", from Joseph Skelton's 1823 book on Oxfordshire, was advertised for sale at 10 GBP by Sanders of High Street, Oxford, ca. 30 June 2007 [http://www.sandersofoxford.com/list?subj2=Oxfordshire&type=Print] [accessed 17 June 2007]. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Oxford, vol. 18, 2016) notes: "A well-endowed church existed by the late 11th century [...] apparently one of several given by the Norman baron Miles Crispin for the endowment of prebends in the collegiate chapel of St Nicholas in Wallingford castle, probably in the late 11th century. It was still nominally held as a prebend (in the earl of Cornwall's gift) in the 1250s, [...] although in practice it was treated more like an independent parish church [...] Chalgrove's spacious church dates chiefly from the 12th to 15th centuries, and was sympathetically restored in 1881–4 [...] Later furnishings include the cup-shaped octagonal font with a twisted stem, previously dated to c.1660, but recently claimed to include 16th-century heraldry and to have perhaps been recut from an earlier bowl"; the latter comment is footnoted in the VCH entry to "Keevill and Underwood, 'Conservation Plan', 33, citing emblems associated with Charles Brandon (d. 1545), duke of Suffolk, and his wife Mary Tudor (d. 1533). Brandon held property at Ewelme and Swyncombe, but not at Chalgrove."
COORDINATES
Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal: 51.66453, -1.0803
Church Latitude & Longitude DMS: 51° 39′ 52.31″ N, 1° 4′ 49.08″ W
UTM: 30U 632766 5725472
MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS
Material: stone
Font Shape: octagonal (mounted)
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: octagonal
LID INFORMATION
Date: modern?
Material: wood, oak
Apparatus: no
Notes: round and flat, with metal decoration and cross finial; appears modern
REFERENCES
Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. Accessed: 2019-06-27 00:00:00. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.
Kelly, Kelly's Directory of Oxfordshire, London: Kelly's Directories Ltd., 1911
Murray, John [the firm], Handbook for travellers in Berks. Bucks and Oxfordshire, including a [...], London: John Murray, 1882
Parker, John Henry, The Ecclesiastical and architectural topography of England: Oxfordshire, Oxford, London: Published under the sanction of the Central Commitee of the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland [by] John Henry Parker, 1850
Pevsner, Nikolaus, Oxfordshire, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974
Skelton, Joseph, Skelton's engraved illustrations of the principal antiquities of Oxfordshire, from the original drawings of F. Mackenzie, Oxford: J. Skelton, 1823
Tymms, Samuel, Family Topographer, being a compendious account of the antient and present state of the counties of England: vol. IV, Oxford circuit, London: Nichols & Son, 1834