Warpsgrove / Werplesgrave
INFORMATION
Font ID: 22219WAR
Object Type: Baptismal Font1?
Font Century and Period/Style: 12th century, Late Norman
Church / Chapel Name: Parish Church of St. James [demolished]
Font Location in Church: [disappeared]
Church Patron Saint(s): St. James
Church Address: [NB: directions and coordinates are given for the approximate site of the disappeared church]
Site Location: Oxfordshire, South East, England, United Kingdom
Directions to Site: The site of the disappeared church is believed to have been located just N of the B480, N of Chalgrove, perhaps on the NE side of Chalgrove Airfield, about 16 km SE of Oxford
Ecclesiastic Region: [Diocese of Oxford]
Historical Region: Hundred of Ewelme -- Hundred of Benson [in Domesday]
Additional Comments: disappeared font? (the village and probably the church itself were abandoned in the 15thC; the church building may have survived in a ruinous way until the mid-1700s)
Font Notes:
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There is an entry for Warpsgrove in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SU6498/warpsgrove/] [accessed 4 July 2019] but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Oxford, vol. 18, 2016) notes: "Despite its small size Warpsgrove had its own church in the Middle Ages, but following the village's desertion in the 15th century it fell into disrepair and was eventually demolished, leaving no evidence of its size or quality. [...] The church (established probably in the 12th century) stood alongside the main road, and the medieval village most likely developed nearby [...] In the 15th century both church and village seem to have been largely abandoned [...] a building labelled Warpsgrove House was shown on a map of 1612 [...] The map-maker identified it with the former parish church (by then almost certainly in ruins), suggesting that the two lay closely adjacent [...] Its date of demolition is unknown. [...] The church (dedicated to St James) was probably built by the resident Foliot family in the 12th century, and by the early 13th was apparently fully independent. [...] The date of its destruction is unknown, but as the village was apparently deserted by 1453, the church, too, was presumably abandoned. [..] Rawlinson thought it 'long since entirely demolished' in the early 18th century, [...] although some fabric may have survived in 1762, when it was said to be disused and in ruins. [...] By 1780 all trace had gone"; no font mentioned in the VCH entry.
REFERENCES
- Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.