Kirkham / Kirkham-in-Amounderness

There is an entry for this Kirkham in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SD4232/kirkham/] [accessed 11 May 2016] with three churches reported in it. Whitaker (1823) notes that the name of the village itself accounts for the antiquity of the original church here in a Saxon parish, of which building "not a vestige" remains. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Lancaster, vol. 7, 1912) notes: "The church of Kirkham was no doubt one of the three in Amounderness mentioned in Domesday Book. Together with its priests it was in 1093 given by Geoffrey the sheriff of Count Roger of Poitou to Shrewsbury Abbey [...] The former church [...] was practically a rebuilding of the early 16th century [...] The [present] building is entirely modern, the nave dating only from 1822, the tower and spire from 1844, and the chancel from 1853 [...] plain octagonal bowl of a font, probably of 16thcentury date, […] preserved under the tower." The VCH (ibid.) further notes that "in 1662 a font was 'put up' at a cost of £2 15s. 4d,; Fishwick, op. cit. 105", by Joseph Fisher, Rector since 1650. [NB: we have no information on the whereabouts of the 17th-century font]. The present font appears to be modern [Victorian?], consisting of an octagonal basin decorated with crocketed arch-heads and pinnacled buttresses with cherubs at the lower angles, raised on a moulded octagonal base; the wooden cover is octagonal and flat, with metal decoration and ring handle. [NB: is the old font still beneath the tower?]