Little Easton No. 2 / Estaines Parva

There are four entries for [Great and Little] Easton [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/XX0000/great-and-little-easton/] [accessed 12 August 2015], two of which report a priest in each, but not a corresponding church, though there probably were there. The Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (Essex, vol. 1, 1916) notes: "The remains of early 12th-century windows in the nave, the two 15th-century monuments in the chancel and the 13th and 15th-century paintings in the nave are especially noteworthy. [...] Stoup: In E. jamb of S. doorway--carved circular basin, date uncertain." The RCHM does not mention a font in this church, but Foulkes [www.mytruthliesintheruins.com] writes on the church at Little Easton and notes that "the original font of Eleanora's christening" is possibly there [NB: Eleanora 'of Lovaine', daughter of Godfrey II, a canon (canoness?) in the 14th century]. However, as an illustration in John Whitworth's Essex Churches [www.essexchurches.com] shows, the font is either a Victorian product or a total re-carving of the original one, more likely the latter -- cf. Index entry for Little Easton No. 1 for a font of uncertain date located in the gardens of Easton Lodge ca. 1916. [NB: the nave of the church is dated in the RCHM to the 12th century and it is likely therefore that the earlier font was replaced in the 19th-century restoration]