Haslingden / Haselingden / Heselingedon / Hessclindene

No individual entry found for Haslingden in the Domesday survey. Baines (1824?) writes: "There is a font in the church of the same age as the steeple [i.e., of Henry VIII's time, 1509-1547], bearing the arms of Towneley and Royie, in different compartments, and the cypher of Gilbert Holden, of Holden." Butterworth (1841) reports an interesting font in this church. Knight (1867) writes: "The font is 300 years old". Ditto in Wilson's gazetteer of 1870-1872. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a heraldic baptismal font of the Perpendicular period. The entry for this township in the Victoria County History (Lancaster, vol. 6, 1911) notes: "Haslingden was one of the chapels existing when Whalley was bestowed on the monks of Stanlaw, and in 1296 it was found that its tithes were worth 5 marks and the altarage 4 marks[...]; the chaplain had a stipend of 4 marks, [...] and the chapel had an endowment of 1 oxgang of land. The church, which is now called St. James's, was rebuilt in the time of Henry VIII and again in 1780, after having fallen down [...] in 1548 the names of two priests were recorded in the bishop's visitation list, and the same in 1554"; no font mentioned. Noted in Pevsner (1969): "Font. Early C16. Octagonal, with shields." Hartwell & Pevsner (2009) add "a grotesque face" to the eralier notes.