Drayton Beauchamp / Draitone / Dreiton / Druton Bechame

There are three entries for Drayton [Beauchamp] [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SP9011/drayton-beauchamp/] [accessed 16 November 2015], none of which mentions cleric or church in it. The Lysons (1806-1833) report a round baptismal font decorated with arches in this church. Illustrated in 1838 drawing by John Buckner, in the William Salt Library collection of the Staffordshire Archive: "'Font in Drayton Beauchamp Church, Buckinghamshire.' Showing a drum-shaped basin with engraved arches, on a short shaft with a round flat base. 'J. B.,' [John Buckler]. 4.5 inches x 4 inches." Noted and illustrated in Batty (1848) [probably an engraving by P.H. de la Motte from a drawing by E.A.R.] as "a font manifestly of earlier origin than the church in which it is [...] Circular bowl, stem, and plinth; surrounded by plain Norman arcade. It has been recently lined with lead, and the bason removed, at the recoomendation of the Diocesan. This font acquires additional interest as belonging to the church of Hooker's first incumbency." Described in Rickman (1850): "The font is N[orman], round with a series of narrow round-headed arches panelled on it." Ditto in Sheahan (1862). Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Norman period. Noted and illustrated in the RCAHM (Buckinghamshire, 1912): "circular bowl, decorated with arcade of round arches on columns with cushion capitals, moulded base, early or mid 12th-century." The Victoria County History (Buckingham, vol. 3, 1925) notes: "The present church dates from the 15th century, but the still surviving font shows that there was a church here in the 12th century, which was altered and partly rebuilt in the two following centuries [...] The font, which dates from the 12th century, is circular, and has a short plain stem and a moulded base, while its bowl is enriched by a continuous arcade in low relief of round arches divided by small pillars." Pevsner (1960) notes: "Font. Cylindrical, Norman, with tall blank arcading." Listed in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as a Norman font the basin of which is decorated with an "arcade in relief, imitating closely the structural arcade of the period".