Kingswood nr. Wotton-under-Edge

INFORMATION

FontID: 14107KIN
Church/Chapel: Parish Church of St. Mary
Church Patron Saints: St. Mary the Virgin
Country Name: England
Location: Gloucestershire, South West
Directions to Site: Located near Wotton-under-Edge
Historical Region: formerly Wiltshire
Date: ca. 1139?
Century and Period: 12th century, Norman
Noted in Verey & Brooks (1999-2002): "Font. Of c. 1723, with carved bowl on a fluted stem." This same source remarks that St. Mary's was "built in 1722-2, just S[outh] E[ast] of the abbey gatehouse, perhaps on the site of a 'capella ante portas' " and that "previously the parish had apparently used a remnant of the abbey church", "the Cistercian Abbey of the Blessed Mary […] founded c. 1139 by the Berkeley family, with monks from Tintern, Monmouthshire […] The abbey was dissolved in 1538". As in many other such institutions, it is quite likely that the abbey church may have functioned as parish church, but we have no information on the baptismal font of that church, or of the 'capella ante portas' noted above.

REFERENCES

Verey, David, Gloucestershire, London: Penguin Books, 1999-2002