West Shefford / Great Shefford / Siford

There is an entry for [Great] Shefford [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SU3875/great-shefford/] [accessed 21 May 2015], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. The font here is illustrated in Lyson (1813). Noted in Upcott (1818) [with a reference to Lyson]. Paley (1844) shows a cylindrical basin with foliage ornamentation arranged on four horizontal bands around the basin sides, the lowest one shaping the bottom of the basin into a wavey line. The stem of the base is cylindrical and so are the two volumes of the lower base/plinth. Paley (ibid.) dates it to "about the twelfth century, when the transition from the Norman to the Early English style was taking place"; he informs (ibid.) that it "was removed by the permission of the late Bishop Fisher and the Archdeacon of Berks to its present site within the altar-rails". Lewis' Dictionary of 1848 reports: "the font is curiously carved with foliage." Described in Brandon (1849) as "a very beautiful example" of the Norman tub-shaped font, "raised on a low stem with molded cap and base. Cox-Harvey (1907) describes this as a "handsome Transition font" and refers to the engraving in Paley [NB: Brandon's mention of an illustration of this font in "Van Voorst" is actually a reference to Paley's book; John van Voorst, of Paternoster Row, London, was the publisher of Paley's book]. The Victoria County History (Berkshire, vol. 4, 1924) notes: "With the exception of the porch and an organ chamber on the north side of the nave at the east end erected in 1870, the building dates from c. 1200. [...] The font [...] stands on a modern moulded stone base and two stone steps below the tower, and consists of a circular bowl carved over its whole surface with three horizontal bands of ornament, the middle one of flowing pattern, and is probably of transitional date." A footnote in the VCH (ibid) adds: "Before 1870 the font stood without a base in a pew on the north side (Trans. Newbury Dist. Field Club, ii, 70). In 1839 it had been 'recently placed in the chancel' (Hist. of Newbury, 276)." Tyrrell-Green (1928) describes it as "perhaps the handsomest of all fonts bearing ornament of this kind".