Welford nr. Newbury / Waliford / Weleford / Welford / Welforde / Welliford / Weliford

There is an entry for this Welford [variand spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SU4073/welford/] [accessed 21 May 2015]; it mentions two church in it. The Catalogue of the manuscripts... of the British Museum (1844) lists a "Pen and ink drawing of the font in Welford Church; by Samuel Lysons, Esq.: 5 in. x 5 in. [Add. 9460. fol. 57]". [NB: Samuel Lysons work dates from the beginning of the 19th century]. Noted in Murray (1882), after Rickman. Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a Norman font. In his description of the late-Norman font at Tidmarsh, Keyser (1911) describes it as "almost exactly like the font at Welford". Noted in the Victoria County History (Berkshire, vol. 4, 1924): "The circular font is of early 13th-century date and is carved with interlacing semicircular arches with small attached shafts having moulded capitals and bases. The upper edge of the bowl is moulded and the staple and hasp marks remain; the base upon which it stands is modern." Described and illustrated in The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland [www.crsbi.ac.uk/ed/be/welfo/index.htm] with date ca. 1200. The CRSBI (2015), in its entry for Tidmarsh, notes: "There is a font of almost identical design at Welford (Berks)". The sides of the bucket-shaped basin are decorated with a deeply-carved arcade of round intersecting arches, actually a double arcade since the carver has added a second set of arches behind; both capitals and bases of the supporting columns are made up of pronounced roll mouldings; the upper rim has a protruding moulding that appears to have been decorated with some sort of pattern but it much too worn now for identification; it is also broken on the east side, a damage probably resulting from the forceful removal of one of the old cover staples. The circular moulded base appears modern. The flat wooden cover is also modern. The Gentleman's Magazine (issue of July 1844: 19-21) reports the consecration on 11 April 1844 of the new church at East Grafton and describes the new font in it: "The font is placed near the west door, and is copied, in Painswick stone of very fine grain, from an original Norman example now remaining at Welford church in Berkshire".