Wallingford No. 1 / Walenge / Walengeford / Walingeford / Warenge / Warine-ford / Wealinga-ford

There are eight entries for Wallingford [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SU6089/wallingford/] [accessed 4 May 2015], but no mention of cleric or church found in any of them. A font here is listed in Tyrrell-Greene (1928) as a tub-shaped baptismal font of the Norman period [cf. infra for the CRSBI's date on the font]. The Victoria County History (Berkshire, vol. 3, 1923) notes: "Wallingford seems at one time, perhaps in the 12th century and possibly even later in the 13th century, to have contained fourteen or fifteen churches or chapels. [...] Of these, ten or eleven were parish churches, three were chapels belonging to religious foundations and one was a bridge chapel. [...] The church of St. Leonard was granted by Henry I [1100-1135] to the monastery of St. Frideswide [...] at Oxford [...] The church was built late in the 11th century, and the walls of the chancel and nave are of that date. During the Civil War it was badly damaged, and the apse and south aisle are said to have been destroyed by fire, and after remaining in a dilapidated state for several years it was restored and reopened in 1704. In 1850 the structure was again restored"; there is no mention of a font in the VCH entry. The CRSBI (2008) notes: "the church owes its present appearance to Hakewill's restoration of 1849-50, which included the rebuilding of the apse, and the replacement of the S aisle, the W tower and the font." The round cover appears modern as well, made of brass and bearing an inscription. [NB: we have no information on the medieval font here, nor do we know whether the present font, of Norman-like design, is similar to the original or not].