Belton / Beautone / Beleton / Belton nr. Oakham

No entry found for this Belton in the Domesday survey. A font here is listed in in Cox & Harvey (1907) simply as an Early English baptismal font. The VCH (Rutland, vol. 2 (1935)) notes: "the church is said to have been partially destroyed by fire some time before the 14th century, and the aisle, with its arcade, was not rebuilt. The remaining south arcade is the oldest part of the church, dating from c. 1190, but nothing else of this period has survived, with the possible exception of the lower part of the walls of the chancel, where at sill level there is a stringcourse chamfered on both edges. [...] late 12th-century nave arcade [...] The 13th-century font consists of a circular bowl and cylindrical stem, but of the supporting shafts only the capitals and bases remain. The pointed arcading and bold dog-tooth ornament of the bowl are badly mutilated." Noted in Pevsner (1984): "Circular, E[arly] E[nglish], with six arches on the bowl decorated with dogtooth. Formerly there must have been six support shafts." The font now rests on its plain central column, the six outer colonnettes must have been removed, a beastly act that has left and odd looking hexagonal lower base with the bases of the colonnettes still showing on it. There is further damage to at least one of the sides of the upper basin, consistent with the removal of the old lid anchors. The present cover is a plain and round makeshift lid.