Gloucester No. 11 / Glouuecestre / Glowecestre

There are five entries for Gloucester [variant spellings] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SO8318/gloucester/] [accessed 12 April 2020] none of which mentions priest or church in it. The Victoria County History (Gloucester, vol. 4, 1988) notes: "During the laying of the foundations of the new nave the church was found to be on the site of a Roman building [...] and excavations in the nave in the years 1978–9 [...] revealed that there may have been a timber church or oratory on the site as early as the 6th century and that a nave was built there, largely of timber, in the 9th or early 10th century. [...] The church, standing just to the west of Gloucester Abbey's precinct, in the later St. Mary's Square, was pre-Conquest in origin. When first recorded, in the mid 12th century, it was subject to the abbey [...] The chancel and tower survive from the medieval church and the body of the church from a rebuilding of 1825." Bryant & Heighway (2003), in their relation of theexcavation carried out in 1978-9, document the discovery of an object that "was surely a font or the platform on which a font stood [...] a large, circular font or font base" of late-11th century date; "The font was ultimately replaced by a much smaller font further to the west", which the authors date around the 17th or 18th century. The position of this latter font could be ascertained by the soakaway found inside the nave, just east of the west doorway. [...] It appears that the old font was demolished c. 1644 and a new one constructed. Bryant & Heighway (ibid.) add: " The importance of St. Mary’s to the abbey and to the town is reflected in the fact that in the 11th century a font was placed centrally in the nave." [NB: we have no information of the early font(s) of this church].