Fifield Bavant / Fifehide / Fifhide / Fiffehyde Beaufaunt / Fifield Scudamore

There are two entries for Fifield [Bavant] [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SU0125/fifield-bavant/] [accessed 13 September 2015], neither of which mentions cleric or church in it. Baptismal font noted in Buck (1951): "Similar to that of Stockton except that the cones on underside slope downwards in a concave curve instead of being horizontal." Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font of the Norman period. Noted in Pevsner & Cherry (1975): "Font. Circular. Norman. The lower rim of the bowl undulates. It is in fact the top of an underside consisting of trumpet scallops." The Victoria County History (Wiltshire, vol. 13, 1987) notes: "A chaplain of 'Fifield' recorded at a date perhaps in the mid 12th century [...] and a rector collated to 'Fifield' by the bishop of Salisbury in or before 1291 [...] probably served Fifield Bavant church. There was a rector in 1305. [...] Like its neighbours the church may have been built as a chapel dependent on Broad Chalke church. [...] The church of St. Martin was so called in 1496, [...] and may have been so from or before the grant of 1267 of a Martinmas fair at Fifield Bavant. [...] The 12th-century font and a lancet window in the north wall suggest an early origin".