Staines / Ad Pontes / Staines-upon-Thames / Stanes

There is an entry for Staines [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TQ0371/staines/] [accessed 20 October 2015], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. The Victoria County History (Middlesex, vol. 3, 1962) notes: "Staines church is first specifically mentioned in 1179, [...] but it was probably in existence at least a hundred years earlier [...] Lysons mentions 'Saxon' (i.e. probably Norman) work in the old church, which has since been pulled down"; it further notes, citing from local parochial records, that "in 1650 the font was removed from the church " and, further, that "between 1660 and 1663 the churchwardens replaced the font" [the first VCH footnote has "Par. Rec., Vestry Bk. 1611-81 (sub-churchwardens' acct. 1650" -- the second footnote reads: "Ibid. (1660): the payment was for "carriage of the font-stone"]. The VCH (ibid.) entry for the church of St. Mary , built in 1828-1829 notes that the chancel of the new church "apparently embodied pre-13th century work, and the font may also have been of the same date" [NB: was this the font removed in 1650?]. This last remark in the VCH is footnoted to "Lysons Mdx. Pars, 244. Lysons speaks of 'Saxon' work, and describes the font as square, with plain circular arches in the sides."]. The present font in this church consists of an octagonal basin with a rounded underbowl with decoration that continues seamless down the sides of the octagonal stem; there is a band of cusped quatrefoils around the sides of the basin, just below the rim, with busy tracery down the sides and underbowl, whereas the pedestal stem has simple colonnettes with moulded capitals and basis, the sides themselves blank. It appears to be a 19th-century work. Wooden cover probably of the same date.