North Leigh No. 1 / Lege / Northleigh

There is an entry for [North] Leigh [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SP3813/north-leigh/] [accessed 28 November 2017], but it mentions neither priest nor church in it. The Guide to the Architectural Antiquities in the Neighbourhood of Oxford (1846) notes: "The old Norman Font, with a square basin, is in the Churchyard, on the west side of the porch, serving as a water-butt. The present font is of wood, square and panelled, with a Grecian cover, under which is marble mortar, and inside of that a blue and white basin." In The Ecclesiastical and Architectural Topography of England: Oxfordshire (1850). Kelly's Directory of 1911 mentions simply that "there is an ancient Norman font", without mention of its location or of the other font. The Victoria County History (Oxfordshire, vol. 12, 1990) notes: "Part of the fabric of the church is pre-Conquest [...] The church was given to Eynsham abbey between 1140 and 1150 by John of St. John [The existence of a substantial pre-Conquest church is evident from the tower, which is of the earlier 11th century [...] Perrott initiated in 1723 a refitting of the church [...] the Norman font was replaced by a wooden one [...] and put to serve as a water butt in the churchyard [...] Restoration in the 19th century swept away all but the Perrott chapel of the extensive 17th -and 18th-century changes. In 1857 the bowl of the old font was taken from the churchyard, rechiselled, and returned to the church. gives information similar to the 1846 Guide [cf. supra] on the two fonts.