Broxbourne / Brochesborne / Brokesburn / Broxborne

There is an entry for Broxbourne [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL3607/broxbourne/] [accessed 2 November 2016], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. Gough (1792) reports a square [?] font here, mounted on four pillars. Engraved by I. Greig from a drawing by G. Sheppard for the 'Antiquarian Itinerary' (1815-1818). Reported in Lewis' Dictionary of 1848. Knight (1867) reports "a curious font" in this church. Noted in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, Hertforshire (1911): "Font: octagonal bowl on circular shafts, bowl ornamented with round-headed panels, Purbeck marble, late 12th-century." The Victoria County History (Hertford, vol. 3, 1912) notes: "The advowson of the church of St. Augustine originally belonged to the lords of the manor of Broxbourne and was granted together with that manor to the Knights Hospitallers by Robert Earl of Leicester. [...] In 1190, however, Garner of Naples, Prior of the Hospitallers, granted the church of Broxbourne to the Bishop of London for a yearly payment of 4 marks. [...] The church was entirely rebuilt and enlarged in the 15th century, and no detail now remains of the former nave and chancel, which appear to have been added to from time to time. [...] The font has an octagonal bowl of Purbeck marble, on each face of which are two plain sunk panels with round heads; the bowl rests ory a circular shaft with eight smaller ones under the angles of the octagon; the shafts have moulded bases and stand on a plain octagonal plinth; it is of late 12th-century date". Noted in Leach (1975) as a font made of Purbeck marble, Polygonal I Type (Hexagonal): "bowl with two round headed panels on each face; eight subsidiary shafts" [source given: Dr. G. Dru Drury] [NB: all other sources describe the font as octagonal]. Noted as a Norman font "on eight pillars [...] probably early Norman" in Tompkins (1922). Tyrrell-Green (1928) writes: "The octagonal form persisted in fonts of the same class in the thirteenth century, with the change that in the Early English style pointed arches take the place of rounded ones in the shallow incised arcading". This font is one of them. Noted in Dru Drury (1949) as a baptismal font with an octagonal basin made of Purbeck marble, decorated "with shallow panels of round-headed double arcading." Noted in Pevsner & Cherry (1977) :"Font. Octagonal, on columns, Norman, with shallow blank arcading, two arches per panel." The 'Short Guide to Broxbourne Church, England', by Busky Hartman [source: wwwwisecomp.com/cd/BroxbourneChurch.htm] notes: "The font must originally have belonged to an earlier church, somewhere else, before Robert Ecton came as priest to the newly completed St. Augustine's in 1460." [NB: the RCHM (1911) reports also two holy-water stoups in this church: "in S. porch, of rough workmanship; in S. aisle, E. of S. door, recess for stoup" -- no separate entry in this Index]