Great Billing / Belinge / Bellica / Bellinge / Billinge / Billing Magna

There are four entries for [Great and Little] Billing [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/XX0000/great-and-little-billing/] [accessed 9 November 2014], one of which, the part in the lordship of Gunfrid of Chocques, mentions a priest in it, not a church, though there probably was one here. A font here is noted in Moule (1837): "an exceedingly curious relic of a primeval church". Parker (1849) writes: "The font is of late Perpendicular design, deserting the old form of a bason with a shaft and base, and assuming that of an octagonal piullar somewhat expanded at the top, and panelled down its whole length." The Victoria County History (Northampton, vol. 4, 1937) notes: "The earliest part of the building […] is of late-12th-century date, the only remaining fragment in situ of a Norman church […] The rest of the building is mainly of c. 1290–1300 […] The octagonal pillar font is of late-15th-century date, with panelled sides and moulded top." Baptismal font dated in Mee (1945) to the 14th century. Described in Pevsner & Cherry (1973): "Octagonal, Perp[endicular]. Tall panelled stem, moulded top; no separate bowl." Illustrated in a lithograph print showing a drawing by Henry E.L. Dryden; the drawing is undated, but the lithograph is dated August 1876. Dryden made two other images of this font in watercolour [all three are now in the Sir Henry Dryden Collection, Northamptonshire -- one of the watercolours is signed "BW"].