Babraham / Badburgh [Domesday] / Badburgham / Badburham

There are ten entries for Babraham [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL5050/babraham/] [accessed 17 May 2016], one of which mentions a priest, Alric, as lord in 1066, though not a church in it. Paley's Guide (1844) notes: "The font is plain octagonal, on a stem." The Victoria County History (Cambridge..., vol. 6, 1978) notes: "The record of a priest, Alric, in 1066 suggests that there was then a church in Babraham [...] The church was given by Geoffrey de Scalers to Waltham abbey, probably in the 1180s [...] The chancel and lower parts of the tower surviving from the mid 13th century show that the church was then a building larger than average for the area, and a 12th-century capital re-used as rubble in the chancel may be evidence of an earlier church. [...] Later in the 15th century the church was furnished with a pulpit, font cover, rood-screen, and seating"; the VCH entry does not mention the font itself. The entry for this church in English Heritage [Listing NGR: TL5095950529] (1967) notes: "Font, octagonal bowl on octagonal pedestal with chamfered base c.1200, font cover with crocketed ribs and moulded flat-topped finial."


Colburn (2005), in Cambridgeshire Churches [www.druidic.org/camchurch/churches/babraham.htm] [accessed 14 October 2007] notes: "15th century octagonal font. The font itself isn’t very exciting, but it has a contemporaneous wooden cover. It is also octagonal, and is in the shape of a little Tudor dome; eight lines of carved foliage climb the ribs, and form a cluster at the top. There is a hole which reveals where a lifting mechanism would once have gone, but that doesn’t survive now."