Grove nr. Wantage

There are two entries in the Victoria County History (Berkshire, vol. 4, 1924) that make reference to Pusey's church. One is in the entry for Pusey itself, which notes: "There was a church on Roger de Ivrey's estate in Pusey at the time of the Domesday Survey. [...] The wooden font, in which Dr. Pusey was baptized, has been removed from this church, and is now at Grove, in Wantage parish." The second reference is in the VCH entry for Wantage and Grove, its hamlet (ibid.): "Grove is said to have had a chapel of St. John the Baptist until it was destroyed in 1733.[2] It would have been a chapelry of the ecclesiastical parish of Wantage, of which Grove was a part until the 1830s.[...] A new Church of England parish church was built in 1832 and Grove was made into a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1835 [...] The 1832 building was replaced by a new parish church of St. James the Great built in 1900 [...] or 1901.[...] St. James' was a Gothic Revival building in an Early English Gothic style with six bays and a south aisle.[...] It was designed by P.A. Robson,[...] son of the architect Edward Robert Robson. The font is an 18th century wooden one brought from All Saints' parish church, Pusey.[...] In the 1960s Sir Nikolaus Pevsner found St. James' to be derelict.[...] In the 1960s a new parish church of St. John the Baptist was built to replace St. James'. The foundation stone is dated 1965.[...] It incorporates items from St. James' including the font, a stained glass window depicting St. James and a panel listing successive vicars of the parish". The Grove Parish Church web site [www.parishes.oxford.anglican.org/grove] informs: "The font [...] came from another church, and is older than Grove Parish Church", and shows a polygonal font with a pronounced moulding at the upper rim, some crenellation below, and plain sides tapering around the underbowl; raised on a round slender baluster-type base; probably 18th century or later in date. The Victoria County History (Berkshire, vol. 4, 1924) notes: "the wooden 18th-century font, of baluster form, was brought from Pusey Church. A chapel here, dedicated in honour of St. John Baptist, was said to be destroyed in 1733. [...] A new church was built in 1832 and an ecclesiastical parish formed three years later." [NB: we have no information on whether the old chapel of Grove had a font or not]