Leek Wootton

We found no entry for Leek Wootton in the Domesday survey. The Victoria County History (Warwick, no. 6, 1951) notes: "The church of Leek Wootton was given by Geoffrey de Clinton to the Priory of Kenilworth, with the chapel of Leamington and pensions from the formerly dependent chapels of Ashow (20s.), Cubbington (½ mark), Lillington (½ mark), and Milverton (1 mark). [...] In 1204, when the knight's fee of Wootton was in dispute, the prior registered his claim to the church, [,,,] and this was acknowledged in the settlement of the dispute. [...] The old church was pulled down in 1789 and the present church built on the site in the gothic style near the close of the 18th century", with its own stone font. The VCH (ibid.) further reports: "No trace of the earlier church remains, but in the churchyard is a 12th-century tapered circular font". The Churches of Britain and Ireland web site [www.churches-uk-ireland.org] [accessed 28 July 2009] reports and illustrates a tub-shaped basin that fits the font in the VCH description; it is plain, damaged at the upper rim and raised on a small circular base. [NB: if the donation of this church by Geoffrey de Clinton is correct, and his death is given as 1134, the church here must have existed by that date -- is the font the original?]