Uley / Euuelege

There is an entry for Uley [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/ST7998/uley/] [accessed 24 May 2014], a large place with over 28 households, but no church or cleric reported in it. A document entitled 'Listed Buildings in the Parish of Uley' produced by the District Council of the Dept. of the Environment, Stroud (26 April 1984) [www.stroud.gov.uk/info/listed_buildings/uley.pdf] [accessed 31 December 2007] includes the Church of St. Giles (graded II*) and, among other furnishings within it, a "Norman octangonal [sic] font bowl". The present church of St. Giles is modern, the work of Samuel Sanders Teulon, and replaced the Norman church in this site. Verey & Brooks (1999-2002 ) describe both fonts: "Octagonal bowl of c. 1200, enriched on each face with a pair of shallow arches; discarded in 1858 but replaced in the church, next to its successor by Teulon, in 1914." There may have been an Anglo-Saxon church originally in this site. Steve Hill, in his 'One Tree Hill Sketchbook' (1997) [http://users.chariot.net.au/~sah/self_publish/onetreeh.htm] [accessed 31 December 2007] notes "the baptismal font by the side of the church" [NB: the book was originally written in 1977]. Up-to-date [31 December 2007] confirmation has been received from John Wilkes, of The Gloucestershire Photo Library, that the old Norman basin is still kept in the new church of St. Giles. The old basin is indeed octagonal and its sides are decorated with pairs of pointed arches, which would date the object to late into the Transitional period or to beginning of the Early English period; there are very worn carvings below the arches that may have been animals originally [the object is too badly weathered for any definite identification].