St Peters Church, Cambridge; 12th-century Font

Dated to the mid 12th-century, this baptismal font features four mermen holding up their tails to create a looped effect, a fairly common motif in French Romanesque architecture but rare in Britain. The font itself is set upon a 14th-century stone base and features reconstructed elements, notably the face of one of the mermen, possibly an antiquarian attempt to undo vandalism from the English Civil War when the Ordinance of 1645 prohibited the use of fonts for baptism. St Peter's Church is thought to have been built in the 12th-century, possbily with Anglo-Saxon origins. The majority of the church seen today is Georgian and was heavily reconstructed in 1781 when the Norman nave and chancel were demolished and rebuilt following a long period of ruin. The Georgian reconstruction reused much of the original material, including Roman tiles and bricks that had been robbed from ruins of Roman Cambridge, including the once-adjacent 4th-century town wall. St Peter's Church is open to visitors everyday 10am-4pm.