Chignall Smealy / Chignell Smealy / Cingehala / Cingehalam / Cinguehellam

There are several entries for Chignall [variant spellings] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/TL6610/chignall/] [accessed 18 April 2023] none of which mention a cleric or church in it, except a "Saewin the priest", who was a lord in 1066 of the land that went to Geoffrey de Mandeville in 1086. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font made of brick. Bond (1908) writes: "The brick font stands on the original brick floor". Noted in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (Essex, 1916-1923): "Font: of brick, octagonal with chamfered under-edge and plinth, early 16th-century." Cautley (1949) mentions it as one of only two brick fonts he knows of [NB: the other is Potter Heigham in Norfolk -- cf. Index entry for the latter]. Noted in Pevsner (1976): "Font. Even the font is of brick (cf. Potter Heigham, Norfolk), octagonal and quite undecorated, except for the moulding between stem and bowl." Bettley & Pevsner (2007) note: "Until 1904 it was plastered". [NB: Bettley & Pevsner (ibid.) note that the Church of St. James, in nearby Chignall, is medieval (13th-14th century), but became redundant in 1981 and was converted to a private house in 1989 -- we have no information on its font]