Bushley / Besselegh / Biselege / Biselie / Bisscheleye / Bisselea / Bussheley / Bysseley

There are two entries for Bushley [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SO8734/bushley/] [accessed 7 October 2014], neither of which mentions a cleric or church in it. Miller (1890) writes: "The bowl of the font is 13th century, the base modern". The Victoria County History (Worcester, vol. 4, 1924) notes: "The font is ancient, and may be of late 12th-century date. It consists of a hexagonal cupshaped stone bowl, slightly chamfered on the angles. In 1842 it was 'taken into a farmyard and served as a drinking trough for about five years, when it was taken to the churchyard and placed on a stone plinth, said to have been the base of one of the four great baulks of timber which carried the frame in the old tower. This stone still remains in the churchyard, but the font has been placed in the church' [...] on a new base. It replaced a font of white stone dating from 1843 [...] given to a mission church near Wolverhampton." The VCH (ibid.) writes about a dispute on the tithes of the demesne at Bushley that had originally been given by William Fitz Osbern to the monastery of Lire in Normandy, which he founded in 1045, but the tithes were contested at later dates therough the late 12th century: "About this time (1187–1202) Richard Swift gave to the church of St. Peter at Bushley 12d. a year and a croft on which the priest's barn stood. [...] Bushley remained a chapelry of Tewkesbury [...] until the Dissolution, [...] and as such was appropriated to the abbey." All of the above point out to the existence of a church at Bushley at least by the year 1200. Brooks & Pevsner (2007) note: "The font may incorporate an ancient bowl."