Chiswick / Ceswican

No individual entry for this Chiswick found in the Domesday survey. The entry for Chiswick in Lysons (1795) notes: "The font out of much repair, and without a lock". Phillimore (1897: 98) writes of an unusually early inventory of 1252, in which, among other items, a font without a lock is mentioned; the reference to a 'lock' should probably be understood as a font cover. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Middlesex, vol. 6, 1982) notes: "In 1181 the canons of St. Paul's had a church for their manor of Sutton, [...] where there was a vicar by 1241. [...] As a peculiar of St. Paul's, the church was normally exempt from episcopal jurisdiction both before and after the Reformation. [...] It served the whole parish until the establishment of its first daughter church, at Turnham Green, in 1845. [...] The church of ST. NICHOLAS, at the southeast end of Church Street, had no dedication in 1252 [...] but, presumably because it was near the river, [...] had been dedicated to the patron saint of fishermen by 1548. [...] The older body of the church was largely rebuilt in the 15th or 16th century [...] Apart from the tower, the entire church was rebuilt between 1882 and 1884"; no font mentioned in the VCH entry for this church. The Chiswick Parish web side [www.chiswickparishchurch.org.uk/webpages/history.htm] [accessed 23 March 2007] informs: "The stone font standing within the tower contains a delicately designed marble basin, which is said to have come from the previous church. There is also a small stone basin used as a holy water stoup which was dredged from the river nearby and is believed to be a Roman grinding stone." [NB: the present [December 2000] font is modern, with a cylindrical basin decorated with carved panels, raised on a pedestal base of clustered columns, on a round-to-square plinth. Flat and round wooden cover, also modern].