Potter Heigham / Higham Potter / Higham-Potter

There is an entry in the Domesday survey for Potters Heighm [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/TG4119/potter-heigham/] [accessed 14 January 2014], but it mentions neither church nor cleric in it. Blomefield (1805-1810) writes: "This village is not mentioned in the book of Domesday being included and accounted for under the abbot of Holm's lordship of Waxham, or Ludham [...] The Church is dedicated to St. Nicholas, and was a rectory. In the reign of King John [1199-1216] the abbot presented Peter Bardolf to be vicar [...] In the reign of Edward I [1272-1307] it was a rectory, and the rector had a manse with the vicarage, valued at 30 marks; and the vicar had then all the land belonging to the church." Andre (1889) writes: "At Potter Heigham is a remarkable font which, with the high steps forming the base, is entirely composed of terra cotta, or moulded brickwork, the joints of which being wide and the edges of the various pieces very ragged, would seem to show that it was originally covered with an extremely thin coating of plaster, such as was used in former times, but never seen now." The present font is listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a pre-Reformation baptismal font made of bricks of local clay. Described and illustrated in Bond (1908) as a fine example of a brick font, although it seems to have been covered with concrete; the font is roughly octagonal, both the basin and the pedestal base, the latter with some sort of ornamentation not discernible in the source. The plinth has three steps and has shields on some of the sides. The underbowl has a graded chamfer and the stem of the base, also octagonal, has plain buttresses at the angles; the sides of the stem are plain as well. Bond (ibid.) points out the pulley near the apex of the roof; it must have served to raise the font cover in the past (the cover illustrated in Cautley is a modern flat one). There is another reference to a font at "Heigham, Norfolk" in Bond (ibid.) as having the famous Greek palindrome NIFON ANOM HMAT... on it, but Bond lists them separately in his Index locorum and we have not able to locate corroboration of the inscription. Bond (ibid.) records the mechanism of the font cover: "At Potter Heigham [...][ there may be seen a pulley near the apex of the roof, like long rollers, which have been used for the ropes or chain to raise and lower the font cover." The font is described and illustrated in Cautley (1949) who remarks on its being of brick and adds "the only other example I know of being at Chignal Smealy (Essex)". In Pevsner & Wilson (1997). Described and illustrated in Knott (2008): "Norfolk's only brick font (Suffolk has another at Polstead). It appears to be 15th century; there are banded details which have eroded, but may have been trefoils."