Rollesby / Rolvesbj / Rolvesby / Rotholfuesby

There are six entries for Rollesby [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/TG4415/rollesby/] [accessed 27 May 2014], neither of which mentions a church or cleric in it. The earliest date associated with this church in Blomefield (1805-1810) is in a dispute over patronage: "In the 5th of Edward I. there was a pleading wherein Simon de Peche and his wife, &c. claimed the patronage of the church of Rollesby, against Ernald de Rollesby", that is, in 1276. The dating of the colonnettes of the font to the Early English period would roughly agree with the mid-13th century date of the church. Pevsner & Wilson (1997) note that only the "eight Purbeck marble shafts" are 13th-century, on which is a 19th-century basin of the design that would have probably been the original, that is, octagonal with pairs of pointed arches on the sides; the central shaft and base and plinth are also modern; a part (?) of the lower base may be original. Illustrated in Knott (2006), who notes also the presence of "a portable font of the sort used by energetic 19th century Rectors" [NB: this item is the size and shape of the mortars used by apothecaries of old, and one of the many non-liturgical objects brought into the churches by over-zealous vicars and wardens, a practice against which Bond (1908) wrote ardently].