Balsham / Belsham / Belessham

There are four entries for Balsham [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL5850/balsham/] [accessed 18 May 2016], none of which mention cleric or church in it. Baptismal font consisting of a sixteen-sided polygonal or hemispherical (?) basin raised on a pedestal base, and a two-step plinth. Betjeman mentions a "loft font over by F.E. Howard." [F.E. Howard died in 1934]. Kelly's 'Directory...' of 1929 [transcribed in www.genuki.org.uk] informs that "the elaborately carved font cover, placed in 1927 near the tower arch, is also the work of the rector" [.i.e., the rector at the time of the publication of the Directory]. The entry for this church in English Heritage [Listing NGR: TL5878650861] (1967) notes: "Font: C13 octagonal bowl on wooden stem and base. Fine C19 carved font cover." The Victoria County History (Cambridge..., vol. 6, 1978) notes: "There was a church at Balsham by 1010. [...] There was a tower c. 1150, [...] but the surviving bell tower is of the mid to late 13th century and is the oldest part of the fabric [...] The ancient stone font has a sixteen-sided bowl and a carved wooden cover." Colburn (2005), in the Cambridgeshire Churches web site [www.druidic.org/camchurch/churches/balsham.htm] [accessed 16 October 2007], writes: "The font here is rather plain, but it is surmounted by a wonderfully elaborate Victorian canopy: a big architectural thing covered in frilly buttresses, spires and niches. (There aren't any original font canopies like this in Cambridgeshire, but if you're prepared to travel to Suffolk, you can see excellent examples in Ufford, Sudbury and Worlingworth; as well as two more fabulous Victorian versions in Southwold and the cathedral at Bury St Edmunds). The niches are filled with a rather austere collection of saints: St Augustine, St Etheldreda, St Nicholas, St Felix and St George stare down looking a bit scary, and they are joined by Hugh de Balsham, who isn't a saint but enjoys the local canonization that results from being a local-boy-done-good." The open-work cover is the work of architect Frank Ernest Howard (1888-1934), pupil of Sir Ninian Comper, of Oxford; other font-covers by Howard are at High Ham (Somerset), Bury St. Edmuns Cathedral and Southwold St. Edmund's (Suffolk) and Swansea St. Gabriel's. Late Norman font (early 13th century) has octagonal basin with two blind arches on each of the sides; there is a broad central pedestal and four slender columns to support the bowl; the lower part is a square platform that accommodates the multi-tored bases of these columns. The stone is partly Purbeck and partly Sussex marble and the general shape and form, except for the octagonal basin, is very similar to the Tournai fonts (Source: Walk round a Saxon church, [s.d.], p.4)