West Hanney / Hanlei / Hannei / Hanney / West Hannay

There are two entries for [West] Hanney [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SU4092/west-hanney/] [accessed 2 March 2015], one of which, in the lordship of "Turold, the priest" and "Walter Giffard", mentions a church in it. A font here is described in 'Church notes...' (1887) in the context of some "notes [that] were taken between 1835 and 1840": "The font is Norman, conical, with a peculiar and bold ornament composed of vertical bands of roses." Described and illustrated in Keyser (1913-1914) : "very fine Norman [...] one of the best features in the Church, but it is not mentioned in the Ecclesiastical Topography" [Parker's of 1850?]. The Victoria County History (Berkshire, vol. 4, 1924) notes: "The church of Hanney was held in 1086 of Walter Giffard by Turold the priest [...] The north wall of the nave is of about 1150, when the building was probably aisleless. [...] The font is a massive and slightly tapering cylinder probably of the late 12th century, and round it at intervals are upright rows of small rosettes [...] the present font cover is probably the incised soffit of the sounding-board." Described in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as a tub-shaped baptismal font of the Norman period; its ornamentation is described as making "very effective use of a rosette-like ornament [...] where small and delicately carved rosettes are placed close together and disposed, with excellent and unusual effect, in vertical strips at intervals around a large tub-shaped bowl". Described and illustrated in the CRSBI (2008) [NB: tried to access this entry again in 2015 but it does not turn up in searches of the CRSBI: "The page you requested does not exist"]: "Tub-shaped, and decorated with 16 incised vertical bands, running from the bottom of the tub, but finishing short of the top. Each band carries a column of rosettes in relief. The surface shows signs of retooling and several inserted repairs. The base is modern." [NB: some of the sources appear to indicate that until the 19th century the old basin was raised on a lower base of the 13th century (?); Keyser (ibid.) reported it "of modern date" in his 1913 visit, which must be the present one. The round wooden cover is a modern re-cycling of part of the old Jacobean pulpit tester. East Hanney's Church of St. James the Less is modern