Little Staughton / Staughton Parva / Stocton Parva / Stokton Parva

No individual entry for Little Staughton found in the Domesday survey. The Victoria County History (Bedford, vol. 3, 1912) notes: "The earliest document dealing with Little Staughton that has been discovered bears the date of 1206; it records that John de Stocton in that year quitclaimed a carucate of land in Little Staughton to Brother Aimery, master of the Templars, for 30 marks of silver. [...] The advowson of Little Staughton apparently belonged to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem and follows the same descent as the manor (q.v.) until the Dissolution. In 1291 the church was valued at £5, (fn. 63) and at the Dissolution at £13 18s. 6d. [...] The church has developed from an aisleless 13th-century building [...] There is a plain octagonal font at the west end of the nave of 15th-century date." The baptismal font consists of an octagonal basin with plain vertical sides and a concave underbowl, raised on an octagonal pedestal base and plinth; flat wooden cover, plain and modern. [NB: we have no information on the font of the earlier church].