Woodrising / Risinga / Woderising / Wood Rising / Wood Rysing

There are two entries for Woodrising in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/TF9803/wood-rising/] [accessed 31 March 2014], but neither mentions a church or cleric in it. Blomefield (1805-1810) writes: "The church of Wood-Rising is dedicated to St. Nicholas [...] John de Walcote occurs rector in the 14th of Edward I" [1272-1307]. There are indications that a church existed here much earlier, as a dispute for the right of patronage in 1280 between the prior of Lewes and the local lords is reported in Blomefield (ibid.), who states: "t appeared that Richard de Rising had confirmed the prior's right, in the first of Richard I. and Roger de Rising, in the time of Pandolf Bishop of Norwich"; "the first of Richard I" would be 1189, and Pandolf [aka Pandulf Masca], bishop of Norwich died in 1226. The font of the medieval church was probably destroyed when the church tower collapsed in the 18th century. The present font, illustrated in Knott (2006) is octagonal, decorated with shields in cusped panels on the basin sides, and shields again on the underbowl, all of them blank; mouldings and cinquefoil arches or windows on the stem. The wooden cover a low-dome with a ball finial. Both font and cover are modern. [NB: the font destroyed in the tower collapse was probably of the 14th-century re-building of an earlier, 12th-century, church here -- we have no information in its font].