Bourn / Brone / Brunam / Brune

There are four entries for Bourn [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TL3256/bourn/] [accessed 27 Apri 2016], neither of which mentions a church in it; one of the entries, however, mentions two priests as lords of it in 1066 [cf. infra]. The RCHM (Cambridgeshire, 1968) notes: "Font: octagonal bowl with moulded under-edge; 13th- or 14th-century; rest modern." The Victoria County History (Cambridhge and the Isle of Ely, vol. 5, 1973) notes: "Before the Conquest two priests held a hide at Bourn, which they could not separate from the church and which by 1086 had been incorporated, probably with the church, in Picot's manor. [...] The original lands of the church were absorbed in Barnwell Priory's manor [...] The parish church of St. Mary and St. Helen was probably called St. Helen's originally, [...] but the name St. Mary had been included by 1348;[...] St. Mary, the patron saint of the chantry, superseded St. Helen as patron saint of the parish church after the 15th century, but the village feast was still held on St. Helen's day in the early 20th century.[...] The joint dedication was revived in the 1930s" [NB: there is no mention of a font in the VCH]. The octagonal basin has been heavily repaired with new-stone inserts; the inner basin is round and unlined; the modern pedestal base is octagonal, made of multiple blocks; the plinth appears original. The flat round cover is late-Victorian and made of metal, and has an inscription on the sides [text incomplete]: "[...]BAPTISM + + A.D. 1897 + + ONE [...]"