Norton nr. Stockton-on-Tees / Normanton

Mackenzie & Ross (1834) note: "The font is fixed in the wall, close to the altar-rails, and has probably been formerly used as a vessel for holy water." A footnote in this same source quotes a 3 January 1635 "license granted by Gabriel Clarke, D. D., archdeacon" allows women servants to kneel down in the middle aisle, "nere the font", which must mean there was another font not built into the wall at the time. Another footnote in this same source refers to a permission given on 19 January 1745 to bury some of the dead from the Duke of Cumberland's army, including a "Martin Schmisky from Prussia, captain", to be "buried in the church east of the font". Whellan (1894) [transcribed in http://www.joinermarriageindex.com/pjoiner/genuki/DUR/Norton/ [accessed 27 January 2010] describes the church: "ancient and venerable edifice, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin […] The parts of the original building still remaining are said to belong to pre-Conquest or Saxon times, and the date of their erection is uncertain. These are the north and part of the south transepts, and the tower; but the massive piers and semicircular arches by which the latter is supported seem strongly to indicate an early Norman origin. The nave as it now stands was built during the Norman Transitional period, which prevailed from 1145 to 1190. The church has passed through many periods of restoration, the principal one being in the year 1876, carried out with questionable taste in the Tudor Gothic style", but does not mention a font in it. The Parish website [http://sites.google.com/site/stmarythevirginnorton/history-1/the-nave] [accessed 27 January 2010], however, notes: "The Font, at the West end, is dated 1857 with a font-cover, dated 1916." [NB: we have no information on the whereabouts of the earlier font(s)]