Rochester No. 1 / Roucestre

There are three entries for Rochester [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/TQ7468/rochester/] [accessed 17 September 2019] one of which reports a church in it. Noted in Paley (1844) as a a font with an inscription [after Archaeologia vol. IX (1792): 134]. Lewis' Dictionary of 1848 reports "a very ancient stone font" in this church. Glynne (1877) visited this church on three occasions (1831, 1839, 1853) but mentions no font in this church. Listed in Romilly Allen (1888) as one of several "later fonts with inscriptions of a religious nature". Described in Cox & Harvey (1907) and Bond (1908) as an octagonal baptismal font; an inscription is broken letter by letter in the eight panels of the basin: C,R,I,S,T,I,A,N (the H did not fit in). Described in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as "an octagonal font with one letter on each of its sides forming as a whole the word CRISTIAN (the H being omitted to accommodate the word to the number of the sides)". There is an interesting letter dated 5 October 1663 from the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury to the then Bishop of Rochester, in which the D&C mention the praiseworthy restoration of a font donated by the Bishop in 1639 and having been "destroyed by the puritans". The letter goes on to praise "the pious and noble work of your Font's restoring" and the installation of a fence around the font, since, "without the addition of such a fence to prevent invaders will soon become the prey of the fanatick and sacrilegious rabble." Newman (1980) notes noly a Perpendicular font with a "concave-sided bowl" in Rochester St. Nicholas'