Was in porch; now in vestry

According to Rudd (1937, 52, 114), this stone was originally built into the malthouse of Over Court, a substantial property to the west of the churchyard; the malthouse was demolished in the middle of the nineteenth century and the stonework was taken to Eastcombe Manor Farm (about 2 miles south-west of Bisley), which was then in course of construction. The stone was 'recognized there as Saxon by the late W. F. Randall and restored to the Church' at an unknown date. No documentation to support Rudd's account has been traced; for reservations as to Rudd's use of sources, see Jones (2007, 1).

All Saints

Fairly good

Fragment of a cylindrical bowl showing two figures each under arcade arches, and part of a third arch. The arcade arches are decorated with three equal bands, the centre of which is pelletted. The arcade capitals have been cut back, but it still possible to see that they have curving chamfers. The original front faces of the arcade piers have been weathered back and no details survive. The figures themselves are simple, with large, rounded heads, that of the right-hand figure being rather more egg-shaped than the left. The faces are very weathered and damaged. The eyebrows and a small part of one eye survive on the left-hand figure and perhaps the mouth, but little else. The drilled pupil of one eye and again perhaps the mouth survive on the right-hand figure. The body of the right-hand figure is plain and outlined with a continuous round-profile moulding. The left-hand figure appears to be wearing a cloak, carved as a series of concentric bands around a narrow central panel with concave sides that rise to a sharp point at the top. Three round holes have been drilled into the outer face of the bowl — one through the centre of the right-hand pier, one just above the right-hand capital and one (now on the broken edge of the bowl) through the shoulder of the right-hand figure. The stone has been reused at least once, the inner face of the stone being partially re-cut to form what was probably a socket — perhaps to house one end of a beam.

Appendix K item (Fonts and stoups in the Western Midlands).

The figures on this fragment are very like those in the Book of Durrow, but cannot possibly be that early (Henderson 1987, 54–5, fig. 53). Similar figures occur on a ninth- or tenth-century cross-shaft from Masham in Yorkshire (Lang 2001, 172, ills. 646, 648), and on a late tenth- to early eleventh-century cross-shaft from Aycliffe in Co. Durham (Cramp 1984, 41–3, pls. 7, 8). The figure types and the pelleting on the arches of the Bisley fragment would suggest a date in the first half of the eleventh century. The profiles of the arcade capitals are similar to two tenth-century abaci from Gloucester (Gloucester St Oswald 19, 20) and to the eleventh-century imposts at Coln Rogers and Daglingworth in Gloucestershire (Coln Rogers 1, 2; Daglingworth 5–10). The Bisley capitals are also very close in form to the mid eleventh-century imposts at Odda's Chapel, Gloucestershire (Deerhurst Odda's Chapel 3, 4).

The carved surface of the stone is curved, and the inner face of the stone is also curved. This was clearly part of a bowl. Enough of the circumference survives to attempt a reconstruction of the size of the vessel. The diameter of outer face is about 60 cm (23.6 in), and that of the bowl 33.5 cm (13.2 in). It is possible to fit twelve arches around the circumference, suggesting that the figures might represent the twelve apostles. The bowl seems to be too small to be a fragment of a font (compared, for example, with the font from Deerhurst where the internal diameter of the bowl is 60 cm). Instead it is suggested that this is part of a stoup for holy water.

Only one of the three drilled holes in the outer face respects the design around the bowl and, while the holes may be part of a fixing arrangement or for some form of embellishment (for example, candle brackets), it seems more likely that they represent a phase in the later reuse of the stone noted in the description above.

Eleventh century

Dobson 1933, 272, pl. IV, fig.14; Rudd 1937, 52, 114; Heighway 1987, 113–14

[1] There are, beside the Deerhurst font in Gloucestershire which has been shown to be of ninth-century date (Deerhurst St Mary 3, p. 163, Ills. 132–44, 740), a number of fonts in the study area that have been said to be Anglo-Saxon or could be Anglo-Saxon. There are also objects like Bisley All Saints 6 (below, Ills. 732–4) that has been described as a font fragment, and Kenchester 1 (p. 382, Ills. 735–6) that now functions as a font, but that are much smaller than all of the other vessels and may, therefore, have originally been used as stoups or lavabo bowls (see below, and 'Further thoughts on fonts' in Chapter V, pp. 62–4, Table 1). In the following Appendix three vessels that were probably stoups have been listed first, followed by the fonts in chronological order by form (cylindrical tub fonts, square tub fonts, tapering or cone-shaped fonts, and bowl-shaped fonts). Some clearly belong to the Overlap period but are included because they show continuity of form and decoration into the later decades of the eleventh century and beyond. The tub font at Deerhurst is the earliest securely datable font, and an eighth-century Anglo-Saxon ivory panel in the Victoria and Albert Museum that depicts the baptism of Christ also show a tub font (Beckwith 1972, 119, cat. 5, ill. 20). Tub fonts have, therefore, been placed first in the catalogue below. However, in the south-west of England the earliest surviving fonts are bowl-shaped (copies of domestic bowls) and it seems inherently likely that both tubs and bowls were in use at the same time (Cramp 2006, 38; Blair 2010). Many of the western Midlands fonts seem to have been carved from newly worked stone, but several are carved into reused Roman capitals and bases. One of the reused Roman bases (at Woolstaston, Shropshire), almost certainly came from the Roman city of Viroconium (Wroxeter) but, unlike the similarly reused bases at Wroxeter St Andrew and Shrewsbury Abbey (pp. 390, 389, Ills. 762–3, 768–70), this vessel has been very crudely reshaped and the bowl is only 8 cm deep (p. 386, Ills. 756–7). It does not look like a font at all but it would, in fact, be ideal for the baptism of adults by affusion or aspersion. Adult baptism must have been very rare by the later Anglo-Saxon period, so it seems possible that the Woolstaston font might be very early, perhaps even sub-Roman.