Wakefield No. 1 / Wachefeld

There is an entry for this Wakefield [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SE3320/wakefield/] [accessed 31 October 2018]; it reports three priests and two churches in it. Glynne's 23 January 1834 visit to Rothwell church (in Butler, 2007) reports: "The font is an octagonal basin, resembling that of Wakefield", and in the notes corresponding to Wakefield itself (ibid.): "The font is octagonal, bearing the date 1661." Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a Restoration baptismal font dated 1661. The Cathedral web site [www.wakefield-cathedral.org.uk] mentions the installation of a new font in 1661 but does not inform of the fate of the previous font [NB: a church may have existed here as early as Anglo-Saxon times, as witnessed by the Saxon cross shaft in the Wakefield Museum]. Morris (1932) notes it as a coloured [i.e., painted] font of the Restoration period dated by an inscription to 1661 and located on the west end of the south aisle. Noted in Mee (1941): "The 17th century font has a domed cover elaborately carved". In Pevsner (1986 c1967): "Font. Dated 1661, one of the many of the years immediately after the Restoration. Octagonal, with initials etc. in a kind of beaded lettering and some coarse foliage." The entry for this church in Historic England [Listing NGR: SE3333220842] notes: "Parish Church until 1888. Large Perpendicular church with south porch (having good wrought-iron gate) and large west tower of four stages with angle buttresses and very tall crocketed spire behind parapet with crocketed corner pinnacles; early C15, rebuilt during the restorations of 1858-1874 by Sir George Gilbert Scott [...] Mid C17 font".