Rushford / Rushford with Snarehill / Rushworth

Blomefield (1805-1810) writes: "church of St. John the Evangelist [...] This Collegiate Church was built in form of a cross; the quire, north and south cross isles are quite demolished, though there are two grave-stones in the north cross isle, still to be seen in the yard, but no inscriptions on them; the nave is now used by the parish, and a small part of it at the east end, separated from the rest, serves for a chancel: there is a very good square tower, having only one bell, though there have been five or six, the frames still remaining; it is a good building, and seems to be of the same date with the foundation of the college. [...] Rushworth was a rectory, and so continued till Sir Edmund Gonevyle, or Gonvile, who was both patron and rector, founded a college for a custos, or master, and five chaplains, who were brethren, or fellows, and were to elect their master, and present him at Lerling," [NB: Edmund Gonville, aka Gonvile, Gunevyle, etc., rector of Rushford 1326-1342 -- d. 1351]. The first rector of this church recorded in Bromefield (ibid.) is John de Bukenham, presented in 1301, but he does not give the date of the original church nor does he mention a font in it. The modern font is illustrated in Knott (2005). It consists of an octagonal basin decorated with quatrefoils on the sides and demi-angels on the underbowl angles; the base has eight colonnettes around a central shaft [NB: we have no information on the medieval font of this 13th-century church]. [NB: the hamlet of Snarehill is described in Blomefield (ibid.) as extraparochial and "all that remain of two villages, Great and Little Snareshill"; though noted in Domesday as 'Snareshella', and elsewhere as 'Snureshill', it appears not to have had its own church].