Haresfield / Hersefeld

There is an entry for Haresfield [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SO8110/haresfield/] [accessed 13 February 2019] but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. Cox & Harvey (1907) list a baptismal font of the Norman period here. Described and illustrated in Bond (1908): one of the plainer of the Gloucester group of lead fonts; it is, like most of the others, cylindrical in shape and of a size to be mounted on a pedestal; the ornamentation of the sides consists of four horizontal bands: the upper one has trilobe arches; the next down has triquetra motif; the third down appears plain; the fourth and last has a sort of zig-zag pattern all around. This font has also two shallow protrusions at opposite sides of the basin sides, near the top, to serve as handles(?). It rests on a cylindrical pedestal of unknown, but probably modern, date. Fryer (1908) reports that the font had been "painted a dark green colour, and this appears to have decieved some authorities, who have placed it down as an example of a bell-metal font [i.e., an alloy made of 20% tin and 80% copper]. I was permitted by the churchwardens to remove a small fraction of the metal, and on submitting it to chemical analysis, the fact is now established that the bowl is made of lead." Fryer (ibid.) points out the differences in the dating of this font between Bond, who favours the 17th century at the earliets, and Harvey and others who assign it a date in the early 14th century. Described and illustrated in Tyrrell-Green (1928) and in Clayton (1929). The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Gloucester, vol. 10, 1972) notes: "The church at Haresfield was first recorded in 1161 [...] Some parts of the fabric of the church mentioned in the 12th century survive [...] The font has a lead bowl ornamented with cusped arcading and is probably 14th-century work, although it has been suggested that the beaded shafts of the arcade indicate a 17th-century date." Noted in Verey & Brooks (1999-2002). [NB: we have no information on the font of the 12th-century church here].