Montacute

No individual entry for Montacute found in the Domesday survey. The Handbook for travellers… (1869) notes a font of the Perpendicular period in this church: "The font has a solid stone cover, which is raised by means of a pulley and chain." Described in Pevsner (1958) as Perpendicular. The entry for this church in Historic England [IoE Number: 436778] reports: "font in lobby between porch and transept possibly C15, octagonal with panelled bowl, underbowl and shaft". The web site for the Parish Church of Montacute [https://stcatherinesmontacute.wordpress.com/st-catherines-the-church-building/] [accessed 12 February 2018] notes: "to the south, in the churchyard, is the 15c pulpit base, often mistaken for a font", and describes the font itself: "The 15th century font, similar in design to the redundant pulpit base". The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Somerset, vol. 3, 1974) notes: "Exemption from payment of secular dues for ½ hide of land in Montacute in 854 may be an indication that the abbey of Glastonbury, the owners, had established a church there. [...] No church is mentioned in Domesday, though the later story of the Invention of the Holy Cross refers to a priest and a sexton. [...] A church, dedicated to St. Peter, had certainly been established by c. 1102, when it became the church of the newly-founded Cluniac priory there [...] The monastic church, c. 1155 dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul, [...] is the only one mentioned in a charter no later than 1166 [...] Between 1174 and 1180 a chapel dedicated to St. Catherine in the monks' burial place, was confirmed to the priory [...] It subsequently became the parish church [...] The only recognizable features which survive from the first church, built perhaps c. 1170, are the Norman chancel arch, one of the brackets supporting the present organ loft, and the re-set voussoirs of an enriched arch in the north wall of the nave [...] in 1969 the lobby was used as a baptistry and contained the 15thcentury font." The font consists of an octagonal basin the sides of which are decorated with large quatrefoil panels that inscribe, alternately, blank shields and rosettes; the underbowl chamfer has pairs of trefoil arches or windows; the octagonal stem has single trefoil arches or windows that match those of the underbowl; the lower base is moulded. The cover that is now [March 2007] on the font is a flat octagonal one made of wood.