Mathon / Mathene / Mathermayn / Mathin / Mathonaching / Mathum / Matma / Matme

There are five entries for Mathon [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SO7345/mathon/] [accessed 15 October 2014]; one of the parts in the tenancy of the Abbey of Pershore reports a priest but not a church, though there probably was one there. Noake (1848) writes: "There is an octagonal stone font which has received some rough usage, being split through; it has some foliated ornaments at the spring of the basin." Miller (1890) writes: "The Church of St. Margaret was made a vicarage ,1512. Church of St John Baptist contains [...]", which appears to suggest there were two churches in Mathon [cf. VCH entry infra]; Miller (ibid.) further comments on the Norman piscina and other work of that period at the east end of the church, but does not mention a font. The Victoria County History (Worcester, vol. 4, 1924) notes: "There was a priest in Mathon at the time of the Domesday Survey. [...] The church is mentioned about 1193 [...] About 1193 an arrangement was made between the patrons, the Abbot and convent of Pershore, and Peter, rector of the church, by which the abbot and convent received two parts of the great tithes and the rector the remainder with all the small tithes and the tithes of Farley. [...] The font is modern and of stone". A footnote in the VCH (ibid.) reads: "Bacon, Liber Regis, 978; Ecton, Thesaurus Rerum Eccl. 1742 and 1754. Nash (op. cit. ii, 174) says the invocation was to St. Margaret", therefore explaining Miller's apparent reference to two churches here [cf. supra]. The Parish website [www.mathon.org.uk/mathons-history/ralph-spencers-histories/the-old-community/the-church-st-john-baptist-mathon] [accessed 20 May 2010] informs: "the church was built at Mathon towards the end of the 11th Century [...] The stone altar in the sanctuary and the Norman font have not survived, and may have been destroyed". [NB: was the font reported in Noake [cf. supra] a medieval one?]