Sefton / Ceffton / Sephton / Sextone / Shefton

There is an entry for Sefton [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SD3501/sefton/] [accessed 25 June 2014], but it mentions neither church nor cleric in it. The present font is noted in Bridgens (1835). Poole (1842) and Pugin (1843) refer to this font as "somewhat inelegant" [NB: Poole refers to Bridgens], Ellis (1902) makes reference to two earlier sources as to the state of this font and cover: the reverend G.W. Wall (Trans. Hist. Soc., 1895), who reported the wooden cover as having traces of colour and gilding, and an article in the Liverpool Daily Post ca. May 1901 that reported the carvings on the font covered by plaster. Ellis (ibid.) reports the date (1688) and the churchwardens' initial (R.R. ; H.M. ; C.W.) carved on the rim of the oak cover, and suggests a date for the font in the "late fifteenth or probably early sixteenth century". An entry for the church at Standish in the Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire (LV, 1905: 260) points out the great similarity of this basin with the one at Standish. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Lancaster, vol. 3, 1907) notes: "The font stands under the west tower, and is of red sandstone, octagonal, with blank shields in sixfoils on each face and raised fillets on the angles of bowl, stem and base. It probably belongs to the end of the fifteenth century, and has a pyramidal oak cover inscribed R R : H M : C W. 1688." Listed in Cox (1907) as a baptismal font of the Perpendicular period/style. Bond (1908) does not mention the font but makes a reference to the font cover as a "notable Post-Reformation" example and gives the date for the cover as 1688. Noted in Pevsner (1969): "Font. Plain, octagonal, Perp[endicular], with quatrefoils. The font cover is dated 1688 but still Jacobean in type." The entry for this church in Historic England [Listing NGR: SD3568401296] notes: "Church. West tower and east bay of north chapel early C14. [...] Several monuments and 2 memorial brasses dating from late C13. [...] C15 font with cover dated 1688". The VCH [cf. supra] reports parts of the fabric of this church as 13th- and 14th-century, and the entry in the CRSBI (2019) ca. 1200, but we have no information on the font of that period here].