Chinnor / Chenore

There is an entry for Chinnor [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SP7500/chinnor/] [accessed 3 January 2017], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. The Ecclesiastical and Architectural Topography of England: Oxfordshire (1850) notes: "The font is octagonal, D[ecorated]". The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Oxon, vol. 8, 1964) notes: "The earliest documentary evidence for the parish church is the record in about 1160 of a priest named Robert [...] Although the present structure appears externally to be of the 14th century, there are in fact considerable remains of an earlier church [...] [In 1866] [t]he 14th-century font and the oak-panelled pulpit and sounding board were replaced by a new font and pulpit of Caen stone [...] In 1930 a faculty was obtained to fit up the side chapel of the south aisle; between 1934 and 1937 a new vestry and choir stalls were installed at the expense of W. E. Benton, and the 14th-century font was dug up and restored to the church." In Sherwood and Pevsner (1974): "Font. Octagonal. C14." The English Heritage entry for this church [Listing NGR: SP7567800889] (1963) reports two donts in it: "C19 octagonal font […] C14 octagonal stone font, with octagonal stone plinth, with area of medieval tiles to surround." The older font consists of an octagonal basin with roughly hewn sides, with some moulding work below and on the underbowl; raised on an octagonal-to-square pedestal base; the lower base appears to have some decoration at the angles, but it is much eroded now [NB: some of the work on the lower basin sides and underbowl looks like a re-carving]. The 19th-century font, which is located at the west end of the nave, in the centre aisle, has large trefoiled crocketed arch-heads ending in rounded ball-flower like motifs at the lower angles of the basin; plain rounded underbowl; on clustered colonnettes with moulded capitals and bases, and an octagonal plinth. The wooden cover on the modern font is octagonal and flat; appears modern.