Banbury / Banesberie

There are two entries for Banbury [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SP4540/banbury/] [accessed 8 November 2017], neither of which mention priest or church in it. The Kelly's Oxford Directory of 1911 [www.historicaldirectories.org/hd/d.asp] [accessed 30 June 2007] notes: "the font is a square basin of white marble, panelled with coloured marbles and supported on variegated shafts". This font appears to be of late Victorian date, perhaps from Sir Arthur Blomfield's restoration in the 1870s. The Victoria County History (Oxford, vol. 10, 1972) notes: "Banbury church probably originated in the Anglo-Saxon period as the mother church of a large area: the parish boundary crossed the county boundary, and was probably established before it. [...] The first certain evidence of the existence of the church is a reference in 1185–6 to the profits of the rectory, although in the late 11th or early 12th century Wulfric the priest may have been connected with Banbury [...] The present church of ST. MARY THE VIRGIN replaced an earlier building of the same dedication in 1797 [...] The earliest part of the [old] church was the nave, which contained plain, circular piers and rounded arches of the 12th century [...] The font was octagonal, of the early 14th century, and stood in the south aisle until in 1721 it was removed to the west end of the church, 'near the door there, between the boys' galleries'. (fn. 189) After the demolition of the church it passed into private hands until it was restored to the church in 1895. It now stands in the churchyard". Sherwood & Pevsner (1974) report: "In the churchyard [...] an octagonal font, the sides divided by small pinnacles [...] probably C14". The basin is all that remained of this font; the upper rim appeared almost totally broken off, remaining only the one side that showed a pronounced moulding; the basin appears otherwise plain, except for the pinnacles or colonnettes at the vertical angles. A number of chapels in Banbury are noted also in the VCH entry (ibid.), one of which "dedicated to the Holy Trinity was in use in 1298, when it was reported to be unconsecrated", and therefore not likely to have had a font at any time throught its existence until its dissolution in 1545. All other churches in Banbury are modern.