York No. 26, Bishophill Senior / 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 church in Monkhouse, Bedford & Fawcett (1843) notes: "The Font is DEC[orated], 8-gonal, basin 8-gonal, stem and square base". The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (York, 1961) notes: "The church of ST. MARY, Bishophill, Senior, is first mentioned in 1202 [...] In 1876 the newly built church of St. Clement was substituted for St. Mary's as parish church. The substitution was made without consultation of the parishioners and aroused much ill feeling. The parish boundaries were revised in 1885 so that the church lay in Bishophill Junior parish. It was still used for occasional services in 1919. In 1956 it was ruinous and a faculty was then obtained for its demolition, but in 1958 the ruins were still standing." The RCHM (York, 1962- ) notes: "Font: fragment found in 1964, with Geometrical panelling, late 13th-century." St. Mary Bishophill Senior was one of the earliest churches of York, already in place in the early 11th century. According to th RCHM (ibid.) and Butler (2007) it was demolished in 1963. The entry for the cemetery of this church in Find a Grave [www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2500907/st-mary-bishophill-senior-churchyard] [accessed 22 August 2019] notes: "The now demolished St. Mary Bishophill (Senior) Church dated to before the Norman conquest times, and had a nave which was of a late Saxon date, and the church was also recorded in the Domesday Book. An aisle was added in the twelfth century and a doorway from the same period which survived until the church was demolished in the 1960s. It has also been discovered that there were also some Roman walls situated underneath the church. [...] The church was sadly demolished in 1963 and some of the fittings were moved to St. Clement's Church on Scarcroft Road and the arcade was incorporated into the Church of the Holy Redeemer on Boroughbridge Road." [NB: we have no information on the fate or whereabouts of the original font of this church]