West Beckham / Becham

Blomefield (1805-1810) writes: "The church [...] is dedicated to all the Saints, stands in a field, no house near to it. The chancel, which is repaired by the impropriator, is tiled, the nave leaded, the tower is round at the bottom, above octangular, and has one bell [...] The Church was a rectory in the gift of the prior and convent of Norwich, and appropriated by John de Grey, Bishop, to the use of the almoner [...] The convent had all the glebe, 14 acres, with the great tithes, paid all charges whatsoever, the vicar having only the small tithes." [NB: the church must have existed ca. 1200, since John the Gray, bishop of Norwich, died in 1214]. Blomefield (ibid.) names "Henry de Fuldow, the 1st vicar, presented by the prior, &c.", in 1303. Pevsner & Wilson (1997) note that West Beckham All Saints' was "demolished 1890 to make way for the new church, as was St. Helen, East Beckham". The new church of St. Helen and All Saints, West Beckham, did not inherit either of the earlier fonts; instead it got its own late 19th-century horrid plastic-looking font by Harbeston & Faulkner. The latter is illustrated in Knott (2008).