Coleshill nr. Farringdon / Coleselle / Coleshalle / Coleshull / Colleshulle / Colleshylle

There are four entries for this Coleshill [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SU2393/coleshill/] [accessed 9 June 2015], neither of which mentions cleric or church in it. A font here is described in 'Church notes...' (1887) in the context of some "notes [that] were taken between 1835 and 1840": "The font is a double cone, in figure not unlike a dice box, but very old." Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Early English period. The Victoria County History (Berkshire, vol. 4, 1924) notes: "The church at Coleshill is mentioned in 1222, when Robert de Coleshill quitclaimed his right in the advowson to the abbey of St. Mary, Winchester. [...] The building has been very much altered from time to time, especially in the 18th century, and many of its original features have been lost and others obscured. [...] The arcade [of the south aisle], however, still stands, though in a mutilated condition, and is the oldest part of the building, being of late 12th-century date, [...] The font is modern and consists of a circular stone basin." Despite the assertion in the VCH [cf. supra] this baptismal font appears now [October 2004] to have been drastically cleaned or re-tooled, but originally perhaps of the 13th century: the bucket-shaped basin is totally plain; the thin pedestal base is cylindrical and either a later adition of part of the re-tooling, as is the circular lower base. The wooden font cover is egg-cup shaped with several (six?) pronounced crocketed ribs joining at the top; probably Victorian or later.