Leicester No. 9 / Ledecestre

There are ten entries for Leicester [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SK5804/leicester/] [accessed 28 August 2015], with a total of four churches mentioned in them. The Victoria County History (Leicestershire, vol. 4, 1958) notes: "Before 1220 St. Leonard's Church was appropriated by Leicester Abbey. (fn. 23) It is not known when the abbey obtained the advowson, but if St. Leonard's already existed in 1143, when the abbey was founded and endowed by Robert, Earl of Leicester with all the churches of Leicester, [...] it would have been acquired by the abbey [...] In 1517 it was said that the chancel of St. Leonard's was in disrepair, and that the lights were not kept burning in the church. [...] Early in the 17th century the church fabric was evidently dilapidated, for in 1611 the mayor and bailiffs of Leicester appealed to the Bishop of Lincoln to permit a ruined portion of the church to be pulled down; the aisle roof had apparently collapsed and was in danger of pulling the rest of the structure down with it. The mayor stated that the part of the church which was sound was sufficiently large to accommodate the parishioners, and asked the bishop to permit the materials from the ruined portion to be used to repair the rest. [...] In 1639 a brief was issued for the repairing of the steeple, [...] and some repair work was carried out in 1642. [...] The church was destroyed soon afterwards; it is said to have been demolished during Fairfax's siege of Leicester in 1645 because the church tower commanded the North Bridge. For some 200 years St. Leonard's parish was without a church. [...] The foundation stone of a new church, designed by F. W. Ordish, was laid in 1876, [...] and the new building was consecrated in 1877." Billson (1920) gives the location of the disappeared church: "The parish of St. Leonard was outside the Borough Walls, beyond the North Gate, the little old church standing at the junction of Woodgate and Abbeygate, opposite St. Sunday Bridge". [NB: we have no information on the font of the original mid-12th century church here].