Acton

No individual entry found for this Acton in the Domesday survey. The VCH [cf. infra] footnotes that the old font here was reported in "Lysons, Environs, ii, 5". Batty (1848) writes about an attack on the baptismal font at Acton, Middlesex [Greater London now] in November 1642, in which soldiers stationed in town, irated at the Rector, Dr. Featley, "With impious hands having broken open the church door, they defaced and profaned the interior, pulled down the font, [...]". [NB: the church fabric is partially Early English; we have no further information on the affected font]. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Middlesex, vol. 6, 1980) notes: "A church dedicated to St. Mary existed by 1231 [...] The church served the whole parish until 1872. [...] The building in the early 18th century was thought from its style to be of the 12th or 13th centuries [...] The whole church, except the tower, was demolished in 1865 [...] A font from the previous church, possibly the medieval one described by Lysons, [...] was later used in St. Andrew's mission church, [...] but many other fittings were incorporated in the new building." The VCH entry (ibid.) further notes that the mission church to which the old font was transferred in 1894, was St Andrew's, a church that closed after WWII when the building was demolished. The present font at St. Mary's is modern and we have no information on the whereabouts of the medieval font .