Newcastle-under-Lyme No. 1 / Newcastle under Lyme

No individual entry found for Newcastle-under-Lyme in the Domesday survey. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Stafford, vol. 8, 1963) notes: "A chapel at Newcastle is first mentioned in an agreement made between 1175 and 1182 which terminated a long-standing dispute. [...] Newcastle remained a chapelry dependent on the church of Stoke until 1807 when a separate parish was constituted and a rectory established. [...] By 1872 [...] the church was dilapidated and no doubt inadequate to the needs of an enlarged population. It was, therefore, demolished except for the tower, and a new church, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott, was completed in 1876. [...] The marble font, surmounted by a detachable moulded and heraldic cover, and given to the old church in 1733 by Samuel Bagnall, has been superseded by a more elaborate modern one (fn. 142) presented by Joseph Griffith in 1899." The whereabouts of the old font is disclosed in a footnote in the VCH reference above: "Pape, Story of Parish Ch. of St. Giles, 12, 14. The cover of the old font is now (1959) in the Boro. Mus. The font itself is in St. Andrew's Church, Westlands: ex. inf. the rector".