Twyford nr. Fakenham

Blomefield (1805-1810) notes: "This town is not mentioned in Domesday Book, being accounted for under the lordship of Walter Giffard Earl of Bucks, in Bintre, and under the lordship of Swanton in Folsham"; the church, described as "a single pile without a steeple, but there is a shed in the churchyard for 3 bells", is documented by 1309 with the first recorded recotor, "John de Byntre, by Robert, son of Bartholomew de Byntre". It may well have existed in earlier times but Blomefield (ibid.) gives no earlier evidence. Bell (1927) lists an 1839 water-colour drawing of this font by Miles Edmund Cotman in the Bulwer Collection. The present baptismal font may hark back at a Norman style, but the manufacture is 19th-century; it consists of a square block basin, plain but for a threfoil at each lower angle; raised on a central shaft and four detached angle columns, all round, a square lower base and a square plinth. The wooden cover has a aquare base with raised scroll ribs with crockets; probably contemporary with the Victorian font. [NB: we have no information on the earlier font(s) of the medieval church, nor have we been able to see the 1839 water-colour by Cotman]