Houghton Conquest / Hocton / Hoctona / Houstone / Octona / Oustone

There are three entries for Houghton [Conquest] [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL0441/houghton-conquest/] [accessed 17 September 2015], none of which mention cleric or church in it. A font here is noted in Lysons (1806-1833) as one of a group of octagonal fonts made mostly of Totternhoe stone: "Houghton-Conquest [is enriched with] rich Gothic tabernacle work". Described in Parker (1848), entry 11: "The font is hexagonal, with canopied work on the sides of the bason, and supported by angels [...] Decorated". Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a noteworthy baptismal font of the Decorated period. The Victoria County History (Bedford, vol. 3, 1912) notes: "The first mention that has been found of Houghton Conquest Church occurs in the latter half of the 13th century, by which time the advowson had been divided into moieties [...] The nave dates from c. 1340, the tower was begun in 1393, [...] and the chancel with it; the north vestry and the south porch are of the 15th century. [...] The church was restored in 1870 [...] The font is late 14th-century work, each side of the octagonal bowl having a crocketed canopy and each angle a pinnacle rising from the head of an angel carrying a shield; the shaft is of much smaller diameter. The font now stands at the west end of the nave, but was originally set against one of the pillars, as the roughness of one side shows." The Historic Churches Preservation Trust describes it as "a magnificent 15C font" [source: 'Recent Grants' issue of the Grants Cttee. Meeting of 22 June 2004 in www.historicchurches.org.uk]. Noted in Pevsner (1968): "Font. Dec, hexagonal, with cusped and crocketed ogee arch-heads in the panels."