Bermondsey / Barmesey / Barmondsbye / Barmondsey / Barnaby / Bermundesye

There are two entries for Bermondsley [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TQ3479/bermondsey/] [accessed 8 March 2016], one of which reports a church in it. The Victoria County History (Surrey, vol. 4, 1912) notes: "The 'new and handsome church' which was in Bermondsey in 1086 [...] must have been that of the monastery, founded a few years previously. The parish church of St. Mary Magdalen probably owed its foundation to the monks, and was a result of their piety and of the growth of the place which followed on their establishment in it. There is no evidence that it was held by anyone before the prior and convent. In 1291 there is record of a presentation to the rectory by the prior and convent." The VCH (ibid.) informs that the present church was erected in 1680, but much altered in the 19th century, but no font from that period: "The font is of marble in the form of baluster, with a bowl carved with cherubs' heads. Round the base engraved on silver plates is the following inscription: 'This Font & Cover are the Gift of Mr. James Hardwidge Churchwarden A.D. 1808 To The Parish of St. Mary Magdalen Bermondsey.'" Brayley (1850) mentions only the baptismal font at St. James Chapel, built in the late 1820s: "a handsome octagonal font, of freestone, (with a small bason for the consecrated water), which was presented by Samuelk Henry Sterry, Esq., of the Grange-road. [NB: we have no information on the original font of St. Mary's, or of the Cluniac priory of the late-11th century].