Repps / Repes / Repps cum Bastwick

There are six entries for Repps [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey in the hundred of West Flegg [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/TG4216/repps/] [accessed 27 May 2014, neither of which reports a church or cleric in it. The Domesday survey has a "Repes" under the entry for "Norrepes", obviously a very small holding, in the hundred of North Erpingham: "a grant of 39 acres of land, with 2 villains, and 2 carucates with 4 borderers, which 2 freemen of Edric held in the reign of King Edward" [i.e., Edward the Confessor, reigned 1042-1066], "granted at the conquest to William Earl Warren". There is no mention in the Domesday entry of church or cleric in it. Reppes is not included in Blomefield's (1805-1810) chapter on the Hundred of North Erpingham, but it is included in his volume on the Hundred of West Flegg: "Bastwick, was a hamlet belonging to the town of Repps [...] The Church of Repps is dedicated to St. Peter, and the chapel also. [...] The patronage was in the abbey of Holm, till in the 8th of Richard the First, [i.e., 1197] abbot granted it to Will de Sparham, and Roger de Sutfeld. Mr. Will. de Suffeld was presented to this rectory in 1248, with the chapel of Bastwick; he was brother to Walter Suffield, Bishop of Norwich, archdeacon of Norwich, and heir to this advowson; he gave it to St. Gyles's hospital, founded by the Bishop, and it was appropriated to it in 1261, by Simon Bishop of Norwich, who instituted William de Rollesby vicar, who was to have all the great tithes belonging to Bastwick chapel, with all the altarage belonging to Repps; but at his death, there were to be no more vicars, but the church and chapel were to be served by a stipendiary chaplain, found by the hospital, who were to find also a chantry priest to serve daily in Repps church; but William Bishop of Norwich, in 1350, discharged them of that service." Even if there had been no church at Reppes at the time of the 1086 survey, one obviously existed before the patronage changed hands in 1197. The present font of this church is described in Pevsner & Wilson (1997): "Perp[endicular], octagonal, with simple trefoiled decoration on the stem panels. Shields in quatrefoils to the bowl panels." Illustrated in Knott (2008). The basin has angel heads at the underbowl angles. The font is raised on a two-step plinth. The wooden cover is octagonal and box-like, with a metal finial representing St. Peter, a pair of crossed keys; modern. [NB: we have no information on the font of the late-12th century church here].