Hatfield nr. St. Albans / Bishop's Hatfield / Cecil Hatfield / Haetfeld / Hatfeud / Hetfelle / Old Hatfield

There is an entry for this Hatfield [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL2308/hatfield/] [accessed 12 October 2016]; it mentions a priest but not a church in it, though there probably was one there. The Victoria County History (Hertfordshire, vol. 3, 1912) notes: "The advowson of the church of St. Etheldreda at Hatfield […] belonged from the earliest times to the Abbots and Bishops of Ely […] The original church of the early 13th century appears to have been cruciform with a central tower, of which evidence remains in the thickened east wall of the nave and a flying arch on the north side"; no font mentioned in the VCH entry. Tompkins (1922) notes "the beautiful clustered shafts of marble on the font of Tisbury stone, the gift of the late Marchioness of Salisbury." [NB: the first Marquess of Salisbury (1748-1823) was Lord Chamberlain to George III, therefore this font must be 18th-century or later. The fabric of the church goes back to the late-13th century, and there probably was a church here by 1086, but we have no information on the earlier font(s) of this church].