Woodton / Udetuna / Undetena / Uuddetuna / Wodetona / Wodetuna / Wooton

There are seven entries for Woodton [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/TM2894/woodton/] [accessed 6 March 2014], one of which includes a church with lands in it. Blomefield (1805-1810) notes that the church here was part of the holdings by the freeman Ulketel before the Conquest [NB: Domesday does not acknowledge Anglo-Saxon titles, so earlier lords are 'freemen']; he further notes: "The Church is a rectory dedicated to All-Saints: in the reign of Edward I. Sir James, son of Clereband was patron, and the rector had a manse, with 30 acres of land". The present font is described in Pevsner & Wilson (1999): "C13, of marble, square, with the familiar shallow blank arches, but completely re-cut." Described and illustrated in Knott (2005): "The font is curious. On the face of it is a plain, square Norman affair, it has been reset on elaborate columns and has arcading inscribed into its sides. The result is very pleasing, I think." As it now stands, everything is too sharp, too regular, for a Norman font; the only pieces that appear to have any age patina are the central shaft and the lower half of the lower base. As Knott indicates [cf. supra] it has been reset, and most of the base must be a replacement. The incised arches of the basin are modern work; it may have been re-tooled in all of its outer surfaces [the basin interior needs to be checked for adze or chisel work-patterns to ascertain its age]. The flat and plain square wooden cover is modern.