Halse / Halsa / Halse Priors

There is an entry for this Halse in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/ST1427/halse/] [accessed 6 March 2018], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. Jeboult (1873) writes: "The font is of Norman construction, and deserved particular notice for its antiquity." Wade & Wade (1929) report a "curious font, probably early Norm[an]" in this church. In Pevsner (1958): "Circular, Norman, of a tapering shape, with arches originally interlaced." The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Somerset, vol. 5, 1985) notes: "Robert Arundel gave the church of Halse to the order of St. John of Jerusalem. [...] A chaplain was serving the parish c. 1159, and a vicarage had been ordained by c. 1188 [...] The rear arch of the south door, the font, and a fragment of carved stone beneath the east window survive from the 12th-century church". Noted in the Listed Buildings project of the Taunton Deane Borough Council [http://www.tauntondeane.gov.uk/tdbcsites/her/her_lb/lbdets.asp?id=001933] [accessed 16 March 2008] as a Norman font. The Halse village web site [http://www.halsevillage.org.uk] [accessed 16 March 2008] shows two photographs of the font: a pre-1900 and a current one, both of which of a tub-shaped basin the sides of which are decorated with a blind arcade of narrow round arches; it rests on a base that is round with roll mouldings at the upper end, but cube-shaped below. The wooden cover consists of a flat round base and four scrolled ribs around a centre pivot, in the Jacobean style of cover design, but appears modern. The earlier photograph shows the font at the west end of nave, in the context of the west gallery.