Wereham / Wigreham / Wireham / Wyrham

Blomefield (1805-1810) writes: "W[ireham], or W[ereham], In the book of Domesday, called Wigreham [...] The Church is dedicated to St. Margaret, has a nave that is came rated, plaistered, and covered with reed, with a south isle covered with lead, a four-square low tower, with 4 pinnacles of free stone, and one bell; it is about 40 feet long and 40 broad [...] The chancel is about 26 feet long, and 17 broad, covered with reed". No church or cleric is mentioned in the Domesday entry for this parish, and Blomefield (ibid.) does not provide his usual list of recorded rectors/vicars for this church, but he does note that "Jeffrey Fitz-Piers Earl of Essex", who held Cavenham Manor in the reign of King John [1199-1216], appropriated the church here to the priory of Shouldham [NB: this Fitz-Piers is probably the one identified in the Dictionary of National Biography [www.oxforddnb.com] [accessed 5 August 2013] as "Geoffrey fitz Peter, fourth earl of Essex (d. 1213)"]. The present font in this church is listed in Tyrrell-Green (1928) as one in a very large group of baptismal fonts that are plain octagonal with straightsided basins. Noted in Pevsner & Wilson (1999) as an octagonal font of the Perpendicular period. The font is decorated with a graded chamfer on the underbowl, and a large moulding on the lower base. [NB: we have no information on the font from the original church of ca. 1200].