York No. 23, Gridlergate / Eboracum / Eburacum / Eburākon / Eoforwic / Everwic / Jórvík

There are twelve entries for York in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SE6052/york/] [accessed 8 August 2019] eight of which mentions a church in it [cf. infra]. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (York, 1961) notes: "The church of ST. SAMPSON, Girdlergate, is first mentioned in 1154 [...] The style is of the 15th century but the church was rebuilt, with the exception of the tower, in 1848. The tower is probably not earlier than the 15th century though it has an older appearance". Parker (1847) notes that the church was, ca. 1846, "a mixed Church, Decorated and Perpendicular"; he notes "a stoup in the east side of the south door", but it "was then said to be in a dangerous state, and it has since been mostly pulled down and rebuilt". The entry for this church in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments (York, vol. 5, Central, 1981) notes: "Parish Church of St. Sampson [...] stands S.E. of Church Street and backs onto Patrick Pool on the N.E., with a churchyard to S.E. [...] The church is aligned N.E. to S.W. and stands obliquely over part of the Roman city wall. A fragment of a cross-shaft of the first half of the 11th century, found built into a house in Newgate [...] within the area of the former churchyard, suggests a pre-Conquest date for the earliest church, but excavations by the York Archaeological Trust in 1974 revealed a stone wall under the S. arcade which appeared to be Norman [...] The present church, though a Victorian rebuilding, is in general design and largely in actual fabric a 15th-century entity. [...] The church was closed for services in 1969, and in 1974 was restored and converted into a centre for old people. [...] Stoup: in S. aisle, in S. wall, to E. of S. door, octagonal stoup with pendant base and lead-lined basin set in arched recess, probably mediaeval"; no font mentioned. [NB: we have no information on the earlier font(s) of this church-- it is not known whether or not the stoup mentioned in Parker [cf. supra] survived the re-building]