Biddlesden Abbey / Bechesdene / Betesdene / Betlesden / Bidlesden / Bitlesden / Bytlesden

There are two entries for Biddlesden [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/SP6340/biddlesden/] [accessed 14 January 2016], neither of which mentions cleric or church in it. Sheahan (1862) informs that this Abbey was founded in 1147 by Ernald de Bosco [i.e., De Bois] for monks of the Cistercian order and points out: "After the Abbey was founded, the Archbishop of Canterbury admitted the monks to the possession of Biddlesden parish church, with all its rights and privileges; and the conventual church and the parish church continued to be one and the same -forming part of the Abbey buildings- until the Dissolution" [NB: this, a common occurrence in medieval times, meant the conventual church would have a baptismal font for the adminitration of baptism]. By Sheahan's time, "No vestiges of the conventual and parish church can now be traced", but, as he notes, Browne Willis' History of the Hundred of Buckingham [published in 1755] reported that the ruins of the abbey church "were left in good part standing when I visited it in 1712, and there were then to be seen the walls of the east side of the cloyster, and a part of the tower". [NB: we have no information on the medieval font that was used in the Abbey church until the Dissolution of the Monasteries [1536-1541]]. Sheahan (ibid.) notes that, after the Dissolution, and in the 17th and 18th centuries, the parishoners used the Chapel of St. Margaret for their cult needs; in turn this too was destroyed and a wing of the mansion was used instead; its font is described by Sheahan as "small, and of marble". The entry in the Victoria County History (Buckingham, vol. 4, 1927) does not mention a font in either the old chapel or the original church.