Abenhall / Abinghall

No individual entry found for Abenhall in the Domesday survey. A font here is noted and illustrated in the Transactions of the B.G.A.S. [Trans. B.G.A.S. xl. 39, 43-5, 51, and plate I]. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Gloucester, vol. 5, 1996) notes: "The church at Abenhall was recorded from 1291 [...] The church of St. Michael, so called by c. 1710 […] although it bore a dedication to St. James in 1444 […] and to St. Augustine in 1452 and 1580 […] The font, which dates from the 15th century, is of local workmanship and the octagonal bowl is richly carved, six faces displaying family coats of arms and two the implements of miners and smiths" [after the B.G.A.S. source]. Noted in Verey & Brooks (1999-2002): Font. A most interesting mid-C15 piece. Octagonal, the bowl with a large band of paired elongated quatrefoils, the tapering stem with eight incised shields. Two bear devices of the free smiths and the free miners, the others family coats of arms including those of Buckingham and Warwick." John Wilkes [www.allthecotswolds.com] adds the family name 'Serjeaunt' to those given in Verey & Brooks. This is not the average Perpendicular font: the quatrefoils are tall and thin to fit in the lozenge frames, all of it framed by two protruding mouldings; below, on the underbowl, a shield on each side [cf. supra], then a similar moulding to those above; octagonal lower base below a practically non-existent stem. Flat wooden cover with Latin cross finial.