Aldenham St John's / Eldeham / Audenham / Audham

There is an entry for this Aldenham [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL1400/aldenham/] [accessed 27 July 2016], but it mentions neither cleric nor font in it. The Victoria County History (Hertford, vol. 2, 1908) notes: "The advowson of the church from the time of which we have any record of it belonged to the abbot and convent of Westminster. […] In 1217–18 the abbot of Westminster petitioned for leave to establish a chantry in the church of Aldenham […] The earliest evidence of the history of the church is given by a small twelfth-century window in the west wall of the south aisle, which though completely 'restored' appears to be in its original position. If so the church must have had a nave and a south aisle at least, of much the same size as at present, in the twelfth century. Of the chancel of this church no traces remain. The west tower was added at the beginning of the thirteenth century […] The font is of Purbeck marble, of the thirteenth century, having a square bowl resting on four shafts with a central stem." Paley (1844) learned "from the Vicar's Churchwarden, I. Mason, Esq., of Aldenham Lodge, that it [i.e., the font] is about to be repaired". By Bond's time, circa 1908, the font had already been repaired, as it shows in his illustration [NB: part of the 'repair' appears to be the flushing of the surface of the basin iseds. In Paley, the sides are divided horizontally by a 'step', the upper protruding slightly over the lower. In Bond's illustration, the sides appear flush]. Bond (ibid.) describes the type of font cover found at Aldenham as Jacobean octagonal "molded on the edge, which bears eight radiating trusses, rising from the angles and meeting at the head of a central baluster-shaped post, just below the finial, suggesting a crown", although the one at Aldenham is "boarded over; reminding one of the little ogee cappings of the turrets of many a Jacobean hall" (ibid.) Noted in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, Hertforshire (1911): "Font: of Purbeck marble, with a square bowl on a central stem and four shafts, 13th-century." Reported in Tompkins (1922): "font of Purbeck marble, probably 750 years old" [NB: Tompkins' first ed. was published in 1902, therefore, in his estimation the date of the font would have been ca. 1150]. Noted in Pevsner & Cherry (1977): Font: Square, C13, undecorated, on five supports." The font-cover is noted in Howard & Crossley (1919). Square mounted font made of Purbeck marble on a 5-column (1 large central colum and 4 slender corner colonnettes) base, and square lower base and plinth; the sides of the basin are totally plain, devoid of even a rim or mouldings; at the underbowl level are flat astragals to mark the top of the columns, with the same design being reproduced on the lower base, which is square and otherwise as plain as the basin. Noted in Leach (1975) as a font made of Purbeck marble on a modern plinth [source given: R.C.H.M. 1920].