Rowley Regis / Roelea

Eyton (1881) writes: "Erdeswick wrote about this place as follows: 'Rowley, at the conquest, remained of the king's demesne, and so continued till the 20th of his reign. Probably this was the case, but Erdeswick did not learn it from the letter of Domesday. The written record names no place that can possibly be identified with Rowley Regis." [NB: the one Rowley noted in Domesday as "Rouueleia", reports five priests in in it, but it was in the hundred of Offlow, between Rugeley and Yoxall]. There is a 1847 drawing of the font here by John Buckler, now in the William Salt Library collections. Miller (1890) reports this as "a former chapelry of Clent", the parish register, including christenings, "dates from 1539"; he mentions no font. The 1894-1895 Comprehensive Gazetteer of England and Wales [http://ukga.org/england/Staffordshire/towns/RowleyRegis.html] [accessed 25 January 2015] reports a Norman font in this church. Cox & Harvey (1907) report a baptismal font of the Norman period here. The font in Buckler's drawing appears to consist of three volumes: the basin is roughly cylindrical and has a moulding at each end; the pedestal base appears quatrefoiled in shape and suspiciously like an up-turned basin; the lower base is circular and plain; stands of a small quadrangular plinth with trimmed corners. An inquiry sent by BSI to Rowley Regis 25 January 2015 received the following reply: "unfortunately there's no font of that description now. There was a catastrophic fire in 1913 that may have destroyed it; I'll make enquiries. [...] Revd. Ian Shelton (Vicar of Rowley Regis)" [NB: we have asked for any corroboration of the above].