Hayes / Heese / Hesa

The entry for this Hayes [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/TQ1080/hayes/] [accessed 10 June 2019] reports a priest and "1.0 church lands", but not a church itself in it, though there must have been one there. A baptismal font in Hayes is noted and illustrated in Storer (1807-1811), with an engraving by John Greig from a drawing by S. P[?]: "The Font, which stands within a pew at the west end of the church, is of a very singular construction, and of great antiquity; apparently of an earlier date than any portion of the church: it is large and circular, very highly sculptured, and stands on eight massive pillars, and on a central shaft." Reported in Lewis' Dictionary of 1848: "the font is unique in form, and sculptured". Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Norman period. Described and illustrated in Bond (1908): baptismal font of the 13th century with a cylindrical basin in which "the favourite interlacings of Romanesque traces remain in the continuous tendrils of foliage"; the base consists of a central broad column and eight detached outer colonnettes, all plain; the lower base is round, splaying out into a square plinth. Polygonal pyramid-shaped wooden cover. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Middlezex, vol. 4, 1971) notes: "In 1086 there was a priest on the Archbishop of Canterbury's manor of Hayes, [...] where the church was possibly already exempt from the Bishop of London [...] The chancel and the west end of the north arcade of the nave date from the later 13th century. [...] Of the fittings in the church the oldest is the circular font bowl dating from c. 1200." The entry for this church in Historic England [List Entry Number: 1080233] notes: "Late C13 chancel. The W part of the nave N arcade is also C13. N aisle rebuilt and the arcade extended to the E in the C15. C15 W tower. S aisle and S arcade are early C16. C16 S porch. Tower repaired in 1827. Chancel restored 1867, nave and aisles in 1873, roofs in 1887 to designs by G G Scott in 1873, with further work by J O Scott. NW vestry added 1888 to designs by C J Mann. Further repairs in 1937 by W E Tronke, and more restoration and repair in the late C20. [...] A late C12 or early C13 font: a round bowl with trailing leaf ornament on a central shaft surrounded by eight, detached Purbeck marble shafts; the cover is late C19 or early C20, a tall timber spire." [NB: the "tall timber spire" cover is no longer in use and has been replaced with a more functional one, flat, round and plain, with handles at opposite ends].