Churcham / Hamme

There is an entry for Churcham [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SO7618/churcham/] [accessed 11 February 2019] but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Gloucester, vol. 10, 1972) reports: "The church at Churcham was recorded from 1100 [...] Both tower and nave are basically the original Norman structures, but the church owes many of its features to 19th-century restorations [...] The 15th-century octagonal font of the church was replaced by a copy in 1884; part of the original pedestal was kept in the church in 1970 and its mutilated bowl was in the churchyard." [NB: what is left of the pedestal is now [October 2008] kept inside the church, by the side of the 19th-century font -- the damaged basin is confirmed outside the porch in several sources and there are photographs available [cf. ImagesArea]. Despite the comment in the VCH it is highly unlikely that the ornamentation on the 15th-century font was replicated onto the Victorian replacement -- the latter has an inscription around the lower base dating it -or its donation- to 1882]. Noted in Verey & Brooks (1999-2002): "Font. 1884 […] The pedestal of the C15 font is preserved nearby; its bowl is disintegrating in the churchyard." [NB: the church goes back to Norman times but we have no information on the earlier font of this church]