Great Missenden / Missenden Magna / Missedene / Mussenden

There is an entry for [Great] Missenden [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SP8901/great-missenden/] [accessed 30 September 2015], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. Sheahan (1862) notes: "The font is of composition, with the cable moulding." The Victoria County History (Buckingham, vol. 2, 1908) notes: "The patronage of the church of St. Peter and St. Paul at Great Missenden belonged to the lord of that manor until it was given with its tithes by William de Missenden to the abbey, which he founded there in 1133. [...] The church was largely rebuilt in the first half of the 14th century [...] The font is of the type so common in this neighbourhood, the finest example of which is perhaps that at Aylesbury. It is of late 12th-century date and has an octagonal bowl on a short circular moulded stem worked into a square base shaped like an inverted cushion capital." Described in the RCAHM (Buckinghamshire, 1912- ): "Font: of the 'Aylesbury' type, of clunch, octagonal bol with rounded sides, stem with roll and chevron moulding, square base with inverted scallops, the semcircular sunk panels at sides richly carved, late 12th-century, re-cut to prsent shape in the 15th or 16th century." Noted in Pevsner (1960): "Font. With a Norman base in the form of a reversed one-scallop capital with decorated lunettes and a rope moulding." Listed in Stockner (1997) as a 12th-century baptismal font of the Aylesbury group. A report from the Society for Church Archaeology [www.missendenchurch.org.uk/archeol.htm] informs that a "fragment of the original 12th century font bowl from this church" was found in the church boiler room, and that "the present bowl is a poor quality replacement. In its original state it would have been very similar to a font in Bedlow church". The restored font has an octagonal basin with plain chamfered underbowl and a thick braided moulding as centre ring, all of it of a later date; it is raised on a cushion-capital base, which is the only original survival of the old font [NB: the chamfering of the angles is not common in the Aylesbury fonts]. The RCAHM (ibid.) further notes a holy-water stoup in the north aisle, by the north doorway, "with pointed head, half basin destroyed, probably 15th-century"; another stoup, in the south aisle,, by the south doorway, "small, with cinquefoil head and chamfered jambs, 15th-century".