Amesbury No. 2 / Amblesberie / Ambresberie / Ambresbury

A photograph by Trish Steel [http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/896744] [accessed 7 December 2008] shows an octagonal-to-square object with vertical sides and a single moulding around it; the upper end appears hollowed. The photographed is captioned: "Font, The Church of St Mary and St Melor, Amesbury / This Saxon font is no longer in use." This object is neither Saxon, nor a font, though quite possible part of one, and may very well have been used as one. It has a shape and form consistent with baptismal font bases of the 15th century, and it is most likely the base of the former basin which now serves itself as base to the older Norman font of this church ;cf. Index entry for Amesbury No. 1]. Buck (1951) remarks on the old Norman basin: "This bowl was probably mounted originally as a 'tabular' font similarly to that at Steeple Langford, but in the fifteenth century it was placed on a solid rectangular pedestal, as now seen", which makes perfect sense. What Buck does not tell is where the "solid rectangular pedestal" came from, nor does he mention the existence of what is obviously its corresponding original support, wrongly labelled as a Saxon font. Did Amesbury have a 15th-century font at some point? or, Was it a font brought in from elsewhere? Was this base used as font or simply as a holy-water stoup? [NB: as it stands, it is too low to have been used as a font]