Eythorne / Edesham

There is an entry for Eythorne [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/TR2749/eythorne/] [accessed 1 May 2019] but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. Glynne (1877) writes: "The font is attached to a pier; it is a circular bowl of lead with the date, 1628, having rude figures upon it. The stem looks of Norman character." Noted in Andre (1882), Lethaby (1893) and in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a lead baptismal font dated to 1628; Andre describes it as "a fair attempt in imitation of a Norman bowl", and Lethaby as "a copy of a Norman original", probably meaning the same. Livett (1905) gives the measurements of the font and notes "eleven rectangular panels, of which four contain the date, 1624 [sic], and the remaining seven have each 'a naked figure of a man holding what appears to be a torch in his left hand' -- 'perhaps intended to represent Adam'. The figures seem to have been all cast in the same mould." [NB: the quoted passages in Livett may be from Fryer (1900)]. In Bond (1908) as one in a group of lead fonts that "are not arcaded but still have figure decoration." In Newman (1976): "Font. Lead bowl dated 1628. Crude relief figure repeated seven times, of a naked woman holding a torch in one hand, and hiding her nakednes with the other. What was the significance of this distant echo of the Venus Pudica?". Christian's Baptist history (1899) refers to the possible existence of a former baptistery in this locality: "I saw two such baptisteries belonging to the times before the Civil Wars. The one was at Eythorne in Kent. hidden away under a hedge fen, and only recently the rains washing away the earth have made known its existence" [the other baptistery referred to by Christian is "at Hill Cliffe in Cheshire" -- Christian's claims about baptisteries and baptism by immersion appear at times to be exagerated in his defence of the right of the Baptists' ritual [NB: the Eythorne Baptist church dates from about the 16th century]]. The William Burrell Muggeridge Collection of Photographs, in The churchman Library, University of Kent at Canterbury, lists a catalogued photograph of this font: "UKC/CHR/MUG/BW : F213227 21.6.1906 Black and white glass plate negative of the lead font at "St Peter and St Pauls" church in Eythorne, near Dover, Kent, taken on 21st June 1906. Item Caption : "Lead Font no. 6 Lead Font Eythorne Kent Taken June 21st 1906 this font is now disused a stone font the gift of the Choir being now in use June 1906"". The entry for this church in Historic England [Listing NGR: TR2799449647] notes: "Parish church. Circa 1200 with C15 Perpendicular north tower and porch. Restored 1873-4 [...] Font: disused bowl dated 1628, of lead, and 7 repeated figures of naked Venus bearing a torch."