Eldersfield / Eddrefeld / Edresfelle / Eldesfreld / Eldresfelda / Heldresseld / Yldresfelda

There is an entry for Eldersfield [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SO8031/eldersfield/] [accessed 8 October 2014], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. Miller (1890) mentions a Norman arch and the remains of a doorway of the same period in this church, and adds: "The font bears eight escutcheons with arms of persons connected with the parish, and is supposed to have been placed in the church about 200 years ago." The Victoria County History (Worcester, vol. 4, 1924) notes: "Eldersfield was originally a chapelry subject to the mother church of Longdon [...] The oldest part of the building is the chancel arch, which dates from the 12th century, and part of a doorway of the same period in the south wall of the nave. The chancel, though retaining no contemporary detail, seems by its plan to belong to this 12th-century building [...] the arms of the Whittington family are placed on the font in Eldersfield Church [...] The font is of 15th-century date and consists of an octagonal stone bowl, on each face of which is carved a shield of arms" this is expanded in a footnote which credits the VCH source: "The arms are given as Brydges, Berkeley of Coberley, Despencer, Beauchamp, Whittington, Ruyhale, and Underhill (Assoc. Archit. Soc. Rep. xvi, 278). That on the north side (not identified in the above list) is given by Nash as 'three pine apples.'" The entry in Pevsner (1968) and in Brooks & Pevsner (2007) remark that the font, though Perpendicular, is "entirely re-cut", as the carved details on the font look extremely sharp. [NB: was the font re-cut between the times of the two above references (1924 and 1968)?]