Henley-on-Thames

No entry found for this Henley in the Domesday survey. There is no font mentioned in the Henley entry in The Archaeological Journal (vol. XLIV, 1887: 297). Sherwood & Pevsner (1974) write: "Fonts. The present one is Victorian, in C14 style. Near the W[est] doorway the bulbous octagonal bowl of a disused font, probably C17" [NB: parts of the church go back to the Early English period, but we have no information on the earlier font of this church]. The Parish web site [www.stmaryshenley.org.uk/historyall.htm] [accessed 21 March 2009] notes: "The Baptistery, at the base of the tower, was created in the Victorian re-ordering of the church, and the massive font is a copy of a Norman original. Theologically the positioning is correct, baptism being the start of the Christian's pilgrimage and therefore taking place close to the entrance of the church. The floor of the baptistery is especially fine, the tiles being by Minton. The west end of the Baptistery used to house the fine funerary monument to Dame Elizabeth Periam prior to its 20th century removal to the north aisle. Below the monument were the entrance stairs to St. Mary's Crypt, presently filled with rubble. Permission is being sought to excavate the stairs and possibly to re-open the Crypt. The fine font in current use, close to the central nave altar, is dated 1626 and is a rare example of its kind." [NB: the description above is confusing; the font noted above, located near Dame Elizabeth Periam tomb, is not at all 'a copy of a Norman original'; if anything, it is in the manner of a 14th-century general style. The earlier font, dated to 1626 by an inscription, is located towards the east end of the south aisle; it consists of an octagonal basin with a protruding lip moulding at the upper rim, and curved, bulbous-like basin sides on which are incised sets of initials and the date 1626; the initials are probably those of the churchwardens of the time [this practice has been condemned as rather narcissistic on the side of the wardens by some; it does however fit with the identifying of donors' emblems, coats of arms, names and even images, at that time]; the basin is raised on a plain octagonal pedestal base, and a splaying lower base, also octagonal, bearing a dedicatory inscription]. [NB: we have no information on the font of the 13th-century church here]. The Victoria County History (Oxon., vol. 16, 2011) notes: "A church was founded in Henley presumably at or before the laying out of the planned town. By c. 1200 it had its own rector and endowment, and apparently exercised full parochial rights. [...] No unequivocal evidence survives before c. 1200, however, when Henley church was in the Crown's gift [...] hough the church was almost certainly established in or before the 12th century, the earliest datable fabric is 13th-century, when there appears to have been considerable rebuilding [...] A richly decorated stone doorway of c. 1160–80, which until the 19th century formed the entrance to a nearby house on Hart Street, came possibly from a late 12th-century church of which nothing else obvious remains [...] An urn-shaped font (superseded in the 1850s) is dated 1626, with the initials of the churchwardens John Farmer and Michael Webb. [...] In the 19th century it had a tiered wooden cover, [...] which may have been contemporary."