Old Warden / Wardone

There are three entries for [Old] Warden [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL1343/old-warden/] [accessed 16 September 2015], none of which mention cleric or church in it. The font here is noted in Lysons (1806-1833), in Paley [after Lysons] and in Bond (1908) as a dodecagonal mounted basin. The Victoria County History (Bedford, vol. 3, 1912) notes: "The church of Old Warden formed part of the original endowment of Warden Abbey by Walter Spech, and was especially named in Stephen's confirmation of 1135, inspected in 1286. [...] The earliest part of the church is the tower, the lower part of which dates from the 12th century [...] The font is much mutilated and patched; it has twelve sides and stands on a circular pedestal, and at each angle beneath the bowl of the font are the tops of plain round shafts; it stands by the western respond of the nave arcade, and may be 14th-century work." Pevsner (1968) notes: "The font is large and originally has twelve shafts." Pevsner (ibid.) adds: "the Gothic font cover is no doubt English and of the 1840s." The original base would have had corresponding stubs for the outer colonnettes below, but the present base is a moulded circular pedestal, either a re-cut or, more likely, a replacement. The wooden cover is octagonal pyramidal, with crocketed arrises and decorated sides; on a counterweight pulley.