Eaton Socon No. 1 / Eaton-cum-Soka / Eaton Soken / Eton / Etone / Socon

There is an entry for Eaton [Socon] [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL1658/eaton-socon/] [accessed 15 September 2015], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. The font here is described in Lysons (1806-1833): "Eaton-Socon is square, standing on four short pillars, with tracery of intersecting arches on the side". Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Perpendicular period [NB: it is not clear whether or not this entry was an error in C&H's part, or there really was another, later font at Eaton Socon at the time of their visit]. The Victoria County Council (Bedford, vol. 3, 1912) notes: "The advowson of the church of Eaton was given to the Knights Hospitallers by the Beauchamps, which gift was acknowledged in a fine of 1219 between Hugh de Alneto, prior of the order [...] The church appears to have been built almost as it now stands about the beginning of the 15th century, but with re-use of older nave arcades, the arches of which, except those of the east bay on each side, are early 14th-century work, while the columns, with their capitals and bases, are 15th-century work. [...] Other evidences of older work are the south door of the nave, with an early 14th-century head, the 12th-century font, and the west window of the south aisle, which is of 14th-century style and probably a copy of an older one." Noted in Pevsner (1968): "Font. Square, Norman, of Purbeck marble, painted white. The decoration is intersecting arches." The entry in the CRSBI (2015) notes a font of the 12th century consisting of a square basin of Purbeck limestone raised on "a modern chamfered block supported by five modern round shafts, the central one taller than those at the angles, which in turn stand on a square chamfered plinth which might be original." Noted in Leach (1975) as a font made of Purbeck marble: "bowl ornamented with intersecting arcading; the base is modern" [source given: VCH, 3, 1912] [cf. Index entry for Eaton Socon No. 2 for a holy-water stoup of the Norman period in this church]