Drayton Parslow / Draighton Perselow / Draigtone Passelewe / Draintone / Draitone / Draitone Passele / Drayton Parsloe / Drayton Passelew

There are two entries for Drayton [Parslow] [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SP8328/drayton-parslow/] [accessed 16 November 2015], neither of which mentions cleric or church in it. The Lysons (1806-1833) write of baptismal font "with Gothic canopies, over which are shields, with coats of arms" [NB: Lysons use spelling "Drayton-Passelew" for this location -- The Passelews were lords of the manor since ca. 1100]. Described in Parker (1850): "The best thing in the church is the font, which is D[ecorated], hexagonal in plan, with good angular ogee canopies divided by buttresses and pinnacles; there are shields bearing arms at each angle, and the bowl has good bold mouldings finished by a battlement." Ditto in Sheahan (1862), who identifies the material as "Tatternhoe stone". [NB: Tatternhoe, formerly Totternhoe, etc., [Totenhoe / Totene Hou in Domesday] is located northeast of Houghton Regis, Bedfs.] Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a heraldic baptismal font of the 14th century, in the Decorated style, "of much merit". The Victoria County History (Buckingham, vol. 3, 1925) notes: "The church of Drayton Parslow is first mentioned in 1232 as in the patronage of the Crown [...] The church is apparently almost entirely of early 15th-century date, but in 1863 the whole building was restored. [...] The 15th-century font is hexagonal, with sunk panelled sides surmounted by cinquefoiled ogee projecting canopies crocketed and with poppy-head finials; the bowl is moulded and embattled, and has on each angle a shield, three of which are charged with a cheveron between three lions' heads, two, bendy sinister in chief a lion passant, and one, the reverse of the last." Pevsner (1960) mentions a castellated top, and tall ogee arches on the stem.