Great Bookham / Bocham / Bocheham / Bokeham / Bookman Magna

There is an entry for [Great] Bookham [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TQ1354/great-bookham/] [accessed 1 October 2015]; it mentions a church in it. The font at Great Bookham is noted in The Gentleman's Magazine (issue of September 1814: 217): "The font is a plain square stone, on a large square base, with round pillars at each corner." Brayley (1850) describes the church but does not mention the font. The Reports of the Proceedings of the Surrey Archaeological Society (vol. 10, 1981: xxviii-xxix) informs of the annual excursion of its members held on Wednesday 23 July 1890 to Little Bookham Church, Great Bookham Church, etc.; of the visit to Great Bookham Church it notes: "The font is very small, though early; at the time of the previous visit of the Society it stood against the pier near the south door, with which pier it was probably coeval, but it has since been moved to a position in the new north aisle." It is described in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a square-bowled baptismal font of the Norman period made of dark Petworth marble from Sussex. The Victoria County History (Surrey, vol. 3, 1911) notes that a church here is reported in Domesday (1086) and describes the font: "The font has a late 12th-century grey marble bowl; it is square, chamfered and rounded to a circle in its lower edge, with the plain capitals of four shafts cut out of the solid; the stem and base are modern." The VCH plan of the church interior shows the font located in the centre of the nave. There is foliage carved on the angles of the underbowl ending in a small roll moulding; these serve as capitals to the outer columns of the base; the whole of the base, the clustered columns, the square lower base and the plinth, is a modern replacement, but probably very much what the original one would have been. The wooden cover is square and flat, with metal decoration and ring handle; modern as well. The font appears to have been moved several times; local sources [uncorroborated] place it near the altar before the late-19th century restoration of the church, but that would not have been the original location in the 12th-century church. Noted in Leach (1975) as a font made of Purbeck marble: "bowl chamfered and rounded on lower edge with plain capitals for subsidiary shafts cut out of it; the stem and base are modern [source given: Professor E.M. Jope].