Ash No. 2 / Ash by Henley

No entry for this Ash found in the Domesday survey. Brayley (1841) reports a font inside the church: "The font is a plain square stone, standing on wooden pillars". Described and illustrated in Bond (1908) as a baptismal font consisting of an octagonal basin mounted on eight side columns and a central pillar; the only ornamentation appears to be some horizontal mouldings on the basin sides and the shaping of the capitals and base of the colonnettes; the central column of the base has several roll-mouldings as well. Bond (ibid.) writes that "nothing seems to be known of its history" but, by appearances alone it looks like 15th-century or later. The font is covered by a plain lid that appears to be of the same period; it is raised on a quadrangular plinth with kneeling stone. The Victoria County History (Surrey, vol. 3, 1911) notes: "The older part of the church has been a good deal repaired, but has been an aisleless building of nave and chancel of 12th-century date, the tower, built of Heath stone, being a 15th-century addition. The earliest details are in the south door and a lancet in the old chancel, both of early 13th-century date, and in the new north wall of the nave is reset a small 12th-century roundheaded light, much repaired [...] The south door dates from c. 1200 [...] The font is of wood, as at Chobham in this neighbourhood, probably of 17th-century date, the bowl octagonal, cut from one piece and lined with lead; there is a central stem with eight octagonal detached shafts." [NB: the church goes back to Norman times; Brayley [cf. supra] saw a square font ca. 1841 that does not match the description of the later font; we have no other information on the earlier font].