Bosbury is a large village 4 miles N of Ledbury in E Herefordshire, close to the Malvern Hills and in the main hop-growing region of the county. It stands on the E bank of the River Leadon (little more than a stream here), its houses clustered around crossroads on the B4220. The church, in the village centre, has a 13thc chancel with a N organ room, a long aisled nave of 6 bays, the arcades dating from c.1200, and the E bay of the S aisle remodelled as the Morton Chapel, c.1500. There is a S porch and no W tower, but a detached 13thc tower stands to the S of the nave. The two nave arcades are recorded here, as is the chancel arch, the N and S nave doorways, the S chancel doorway, and 2 fonts; a disused bowl of indeterminate age and the font in use now, of c.1200.

The bishops of Hereford had an estate at Bosbury by 1056 when Bishop Athelstan died there, and they retained the manor in their own hands until the 16thc. The VCH assumes that the disused font is an Anglo-Saxon one, concluding that it provides evidence for a pre-Conquest church at Bosbury. More convincing is the Domesday record of a priest here in 1086, holding 1 hide of the bishop’s manor.

The combination of trumpet scallop capitals and filleted or keeled mouldings suggests a date at the end of the 12thc for the arcades, the S doorway and the chancel arch. According to a label on the disused font, it was found in 1844 under the W end of the nave. The label describes this font as Saxon, and the other as c.1200. Pevsner (1963) dated the church and the current font to c.1200, but did not mention the old font. Brooks (2012) merely calls it ‘earlier’ (than c.1200 presumably).