High Ham / Ham / Hame / Low Ham

There is an entry for [High and Low] Ham [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/XX0000/high-and-low-ham/] [accessed 1 May 2018], but it mentions neither cleric nor church in it. Kelly's Directory of 1883 notes: "a very old Norman stone font". The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Somerset, vol. 8, 2004) notes: "There was a church by 1168 [...] a little 12th-century fabric survives. The font, on a stem with rope moulding, is also 12th-century [...] The font cover, designed by F. E. Howard, was made in 1934." The font consists of a hemispherical basin that appears totally plain except for the thick rope moulding at the end of the underbowl; notwithstanding the description in VCH, the moulding appears to be part of the basin block; the round pedestal base may be 13th-century and re-tooled. Raised on a modern quadrangular plinth. The wooden cover, a nice ogee shape with carved lower sides and crocketed arrises and has a dedicatory inscription on its side. Not mentioned in Pevsner (1958). The entry for this church in English Heritage [Listing NGR: ST4252531068] reports "a C12 lead-lined tulip bowl font on turned base with cable mould, a C20 cover in a C17 style." The open-work cover is the work of architect Frank Ernest Howard (1888-1934), pupil of Sir Ninian Comper, of Oxford; other font-covers by Howard are at Balsham (Cambs.), Bury St. Edmunds Cathedral and Southwold St. Edmund's (Suffolk) and Swansea St. Gabriel's.