Hockley / Hacheleia / Hocheleia

There are four entries for Hockley in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/TQ8293/hockley/] [accessed 31 May 2024], none of which mentions a priest or church in it. Benton (1867-1888) writes: "The fragments of an ancient font lie in the belfry, comprising an octangular basin of unusuallu great capacity and portions of the shaft and plinth. Two plain shallow pointed arches are worked on each face of the basin, [...] which was originally supported by a central shaft with eight smaller columns gathered round it". Benton (ibid.) footnotes this entry: "For years the sacrament of baptism has been performed in a wooden bowl set on a pedestal, of which there were, in 1848, three other examples in the hundred. Some have since been replaced by fonts of stone." An extract of the parish guidebook [written by Adrian Camper-Russell in 1970 -- courtesy of John Hindley] notes: "The font standing beside the south door is a massive structure of Purbeck marble dating from 1160 AD is of unusually great capacity. The bowl is octagonal in shape and each face has two shallow pointed panels. The stem is also octagonal and originally had shafts attached at the angles. It is sadly mutilated and much weathered and shorter than the original height." Noted with an illustration in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (Essex, 1916-1923): "Font: [...] octagonal bowl of Purbeck marble, each face with two shallow pointed panels, octagonal stem with attached shafts at the angles, early 13th-century, much weathered and stem cut down." Listed in Leach (1975) as a font made of Purbeck marble; "subsidiary shafts are attached to octagonal central stem". In Pevsner (1976): "Font. Uncommonly big, octagonal, C13, of the Purbeck type with shallow blank pointed arcades". Much the same in Bettley & Pevsner (2007). A Rochford Council (?) inventory document [www.rochford.gov.uk -- accessed 13 April 2006] notes: "C13 very large purbeck marble octagonal font, each face with two shallow 2 centred arches, the stem cut down with shafts at angles, plain base." Illustrated in www.sspeterandpaul.ik.com [site accessed 13 April 2006]. The RCHM (ibid.) inventories also a holy-water stoup of the 14th century in the south porch, "much mutilated" [no separate entry in this Index].