Lathom / Latham / Lathome / Lathum / Latune

There is an entry for Lathom [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [www.domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SD4609/lathom/] [accessed 14 July 2014], but it mentions neither church nor cleric in it. Draper (1864) writes: "Of the once-famous Priory of Burscough there are now standing only two clustered pillars or piers of the central north arch of the church [...] the large octagonal christening font, which lies under the pantry window of the adjoining farm house, and now used as a mash vessel for pigs’ food". The Victoria County History (Lancaster, vol. 3, 1907) notes: "Lathom Chapel is a picturesque little building of c. 1500 [...] The internal fittings of the church are modern [...] at the west end an organ gallery carried by iron columns, with a plain octagonal font beneath it." The Lathom Park Trust & Individual Authors' Gazetter of Archaeological Sites [www.lhi.org.uk/docs/lathom_deer_park_report_vol_3.pdf] [accessed 4 October 2010] lists under ref. no. SD43320995ac, a "Septilateral Christening Font" medieval, but of date unknown: "A seven-sided christening stone font reputed to be of the Norman period. Seen under the Abbey farmhouse [...] window, by the author (Stanley family biographer) Peter Draper in the 1860s, when it was used as a pig-trough! The font was subsequently foun by Lady Bootle-Wilbraham and moved to its present location in Lotham Park Chapel (Rosbottom, 1987, 31) Its C19 location at Abbey farm suggests and original association with the C12-13 Burscough Priory. (This font might well have been used to baptise the medieval / late medieval, de-Lathom and Stanley's, earls of Derby)." [NB: the Burscough Priory had been founded by the Black [Augustinian] Canons under Richard I [1189-1199]. In their entry of Lotham Park Chapel, Pollard & Pevsner (2006) note: "Font. In the vestry. Simple, worn octagonal bowl on octagonal stem. From Burscough Priory?"