Saxlingham nr. Holt / Saiselingeham / Saisselingeham / Sasilingaham / Saxelingaham / Saxlingaham

There are thirteen entries for Saxlingham [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/TG0239/saxlingham/] [accessed 29 January 2014], and they appear in the hundred of Gallow, of which they were part at the time; of the thirteen holdings three refer to a church. Blomefield (1805-1810) writes of "a church endowed with 12 acres" in Thornage manor, the main holding here and in the hands of "Aylmer the Bishop of Elmham" before the Conquest, held by "William Beaufoe Bishop of Thetford" at the time of the survey. Blomefield (ibid.) notes that the holdings here "though now accounted as lying in the hundred of Holt, are there mentioned at that time, as being in the hundred of Galgou, or Galhow" [cf. supra]; "The Church is a rectory dedicated to St. Margaret, [...] It is a small pile covered with lead, and has a little tower"; the first recorded rector of this church si given as "Simon de Kelling occurs rector in the 14th of Edward I" [i.e., 1286]. The baptismal font in the church of St. John de Sepulchre's, in Norwich, is described and illustrated in Paley (1844) as a baptismal font of a design that "seems to be a favourite one in Norfolk, as there are several of the same style and character, with so little variation in the form and decorations as to leave scarcely any doubt that they were either copied from each other, or were the work of one artist. We can name Saxlingham, Hales, Blicking, All Saints and St. Mary, Shotesham, and Leveringham." The outer surfaces of the font are neat and very sharp, and it appears to have been re-cut. [NB: there is no mention of a font under the Pevsner & Wilson (1997) entry for Saxlingham St. Margaret's]. The octagonal wooden cover illustrated in Paley is flat but has a short four-ribs-around-a-pivot centre piece with a Latin cross finial; it appears modern; the present cover is octagonal, flat and plain.