Rufford nr. Southport / Roghforth / Ruchford / Roughford / Rughford

No individual entry for this Rufford found in the Domesday survey. Bond (1908: 113) writes about this as one of two font covers bearing the palindrome inscription "ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ", "Cleanse your sin, not your face only". No mention is made of the font in this source. Another source of about the same date, the Notes on Southport and District" by W.T. Pulpit (1908) mentions "a large and very beautiful font" at the west end of the nave of this church, as well as "the ancient one now placed in the vestry, and on which is a Greek inscription reading the same from either end" [transcribed in the web site of the Hesketh Bank Becconsall Tarleton]. A correction is to the location of the inscription *not on the font, but on the font cover* is given in the 10 April 1942 issue of Notes and Queries [http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/184/8/235-c.pdf] [accessed 14 October 2007]. The entry for this township in the Victoria County History (Lancaster, vol. 6, 1911) notes: "The origin of the chapel chapel of St. Mary at Rufford is unknown. As the manor was granted to a monastery it is possible that an oratory of some kind existed from early times [...] modern building of red brick and stone erected in 1869 in the Gothic style of the day, replacing an older chapel built in 1736, (fn. 60) then demolished. Of the original and still earlier chapel which is known to have existed in the 14th century no traces remain, with the exception, perhaps, of two moulded capitals, now on either side of the porch [...] The font now in use is a handsome modern one of red granite, a Masonic gift in memory of Sir Thomas Hesketh (d. 1872), but the 18th-century hexagonal font is still preserved, with a wooden canopy, round the bottom of which is the inscription: 'NI[PS]ON ANOMHMA MH MONAN O[PS]IN.'" The entry for this church in Historic England [Listing NGR: SD4641715695] notes that the font and "various monuments, mostly from previous chapel and church on this site".