Kempsford / Chehemeresforde

There is an entry for Kempsford [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SU1696/kempsford/] [accessed 18 July 2014], but, though a very large place with 69 households, it mentions neither church nor cleric in it. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Gloucester, vol. 7, 1981) notes: "Kempsford had a church by the late 11th century when Ernulf of Hesdin granted it with the tithes and the land of the priest to Gloucester Abbey [...] Most of the Norman nave survives and it retains its north and south doorways and four original windows. [...] A new font was made in 1868, [...] replacing an old octagonal one." The Rev. A. B. Mynors [www.kempsfor.net/history/pdf/history-of-kempsford.pdf] [accessed 6 January 2007] notes in his history of Kempsford [undated -- probably ca. 1960]: "The 15th century font with a plain octagonal bowl which had survived the restoration of the church in 1858 was discarded in 1868 in favour of the present font, carved at Latton by William Rosebalde, and no trace of the Perpendicular one can now be discovered" [NB: according to Mynors [cf. supra] the nave is Norman from ca. 1120, but we have no other information on the original font of this church].